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September 9, 2011 at 11:00 AM
Remembering 9/11: Taking Your Calls

9/11 ten years on.  We’re opening up the phone lines and turning the conversation over to you.

A test of the Tribute in Light rises above lower Manhattan, Tuesday, Sept. 6, 2011 in New York. Four World Trade Center, second from left, is under construction. The memorial, sponsored by the Municipal Art Society, will light the sky on the evening of Sept. 11, 2011 in honor of those who died ten years before in the terror attacks on the United States. (AP)

A test of the Tribute in Light rises above lower Manhattan, Tuesday, Sept. 6, 2011 in New York. Four World Trade Center, second from left, is under construction. The memorial, sponsored by the Municipal Art Society, will light the sky on the evening of Sept. 11, 2011 in honor of those who died ten years before in the terror attacks on the United States. (AP)

Ten years since 9.11.  This Sunday marks the day.

It’s close enough that we remember the shock, the disbelief.  The sorrow.  It’s far enough that we’ve seen lots of history – hard history – since those attacks.  War and more war.  Unity and deep division.  Hope and fear.  Economic near collapse.

After ten years, we hope for perspective.  For deeper insight.  On ourselves and the world.

This hour, On Point:  we want to know what you’ve learned.  Ten years after 9.11, we’re here to talk.  We’re opening the phone lines to you.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests

Jack Beatty, On Point news analyst.

From Tom’s Reading List

The New York Times “Can you remember the last time you felt a national leader looked us in the eye and told us there is no easy solution to our major problems, that we’ve gotten into this mess by being self-indulgent or ideologically fixated over two decades and that now we need to spend the next five years rolling up our sleeves, possibly accepting a lower living standard and making up for our excesses? ”

Brookings Institution “Ten years after the September 11th terrorist attacks, Americans believe they are more safe but have less personal freedom and that the country is less respected in the world than it was prior to September 11, 2001. ”

Salon.com “No small part of the public discourse surrounding Sept. 11, 2001, has been polluted by Truthers — those who believe that the attacks were an “inside job,” or that World Trade Center Building 7 was destroyed in a “controlled demolition,” or that the Pentagon was hit by a cruise missile, despite no compelling evidence for any of these theories.”

USA Today “My parents knew exactly where they were when they heard about Pearl Harbor. In the same way, all of my contemporaries and I can say where we were when President Kennedy was shot. Today, 10 years after the worst attack in our country’s history, someone still comes up to me to say, “Do you know where I was on Sept. 11?”"

The Boston Globe “Something happened on the way to Kabul, Baghdad, and Guantanamo. A generation grew up. Call them the 9/11 generation, those born after 1980 and who came of age in the new millennium. They are, according to a Pew Research Center study of demographic trends, more diverse, more connected, more educated, and more tolerant than the rest of us.”

Listen to the new 9/11 audio collection: the full transcript from Rutgers, and an interactive feature at the NYTimes.

 
  • wauch

    What have we learned from 9-11? We are more divided, more afraid, less diplomatic, more short-term, more ignorant, etc, etc, etc. Instead of looking within critically we looked abroad and blamed everyone but ourselves for 9-11. The militarization of our diplomacy played a huge role in 9-11 and our reliance on OPEC to fuel our profligacy played an equally if not greater role. Nothing was learned and it is true that the only thing many learns from history is that man learns nothing from history.

    • Terry Tree Tree

      Some of us have learned.  Some refuse to!

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/Paolo-Caruso/1778940602 Paolo Caruso

      You forgot to mention that we are MORE DISTRUSTING OF GOVERNMENT.   Sites like this play it down, but to be sure, a considerable portion of the country believe 9/11 was an inside job, and outside the county, in Europe and Asia, it is the far majority who believe this.  The entire Muslim world fully believes the conspiracy.

      • http://gregorycamp.wordpress.com/ Greg Camp

        Again?  Perhaps you’d be so kind as to provide your sources for there being a majority in the world who believes in what you said?  You do realize that conspiracy theories are a pasttime of the Middle East, no?

        • http://www.facebook.com/people/Paolo-Caruso/1778940602 Paolo Caruso

          Hey Greg,  can you support your generalization of Middle Eastern people ???

          • http://gregorycamp.wordpress.com/ Greg Camp

            Listen to news reports over the years–Iraqis, Palestinians, etc., repeat all manner of strange ideas.  I’m not claiming that everyone there does it, but it is a common view.

  • Ed

        8:46Â
        9:03
        9:59
    +10:29
       ____
       3737

    Roe v. Wade was passed in 1973, this is the reverse of 73 twice. We won’t stop terrorism until we stop the terrorism of abortion. (And the name of the architect is Libeskind, or Leibeskind, which means ‘child of the womb’.)

    • Brett

      That God…always did like cryptograms! It appears some of this curiosity rubbed off on young Satan, as well, with his lyrics being played backwards in heavy metal music and such. Those knuckleheads…

    • Anonymous

      Roe v. Wade was decided not passed.  I have no idea how to critique the numerical nonsense. 

    • Terry Tree Tree

      Why don’t you spend your efforts stopping Child-Molesting and Child-Abusing priests, and HELPING THEIR VICTIMS?  Instead of trying to get more victims for them?

    • Rational

      …”We won’t stop terrorism until we stop the terrorism of abortion. …”
      If God wants to reverse Roe V Wade, He can do it without your help. I don’t have the certainty of Gods mind that you do, but maybe He would be offended by one of His creations thinking He doesn’t have the power you do, and isn’t doing His job correctly.

      • http://gregorycamp.wordpress.com/ Greg Camp

        We also have to wonder why God cares, but waits so long to act.

        • Anonymous

          He gave free will to activist judges so they could legalize abortion in 1973 which set in motion a mathematical frenzy that resulted in 9/11.

    • RBP

      Your
      numerology consists of selecting random numbers to produce the result you desire.
      It is muddy and unsystematic. A more persuasive use of numerology is the proof
      that Michele Bachmann, born on April 6, 1956, is the Antichrist. If you assign
      the numbers 1-26 to the letters A-Z respectively, her name totals 111. Multiply
      that by the date of her birth to obtain 666. What could be more obvious?

    • http://gregorycamp.wordpress.com/ Greg Camp

      You do realize that this is an artifact of using one kind of number system over others, don’t you?  Show it to me in binary code.  Show it to me in Coordinated Universal Time.

      Also, let’s suppose that even though you added incorrectly (60 minutes equals one hour, so you have to carry to the hour’s place), let’s suppose that 3737 is the result.  So?

    • AC

      I feel gypped! I’ve been waiting for more of your funny math, but you’ve already done this one!!

    • http://gregorycamp.wordpress.com/ Greg Camp

      In hours and minutes, that adds up to 38:37.  Perhaps you have a Bible verse that fits?

  • Anonymous

    Even now when I see the photos or hear sound clips of 9/11, I struggle to hold back the tears.  I am brought vividly back to that clear wonderfully beautiful blue September and the enjoyable commute I had to work.  I got in and out of the subway thinking of how gorgeous the weather was. 

    That’s how I remember 9/11.  It was so peaceful compared to the chaos and the cringing jet screams.  It’s a weird lesson that I learned on that day.

    We chase down and listen to madmen and leaders and we go about our daily rituals that reinforces our self-importance.  If we could just appreciate how vast and open our cosmos is, we’d understand just how insignificant all our activities and worries are.  We -madmen and terrorists included- wouldn’t get so hot and bothered, and we could just be as tranquil as those clear blue 9/11 skies.

    Yep, cheesy oversimplified stuff.  I’m sorry about that.  It’s really not a lesson that I learned, but the wisdom that I gained.

  • Charlie mc

          Father Michael Duffy OFM presented a reflection on the life of Father Mychal Judge OFM, the FD Chaplain of the NYFD, at Saint Patrick’s Cathedral. His words lifted the spirits of all who heard them, from the depths of anguish, sorrow, fear and anger, to evoke appreciated laughter and love because of the love of this beautiful, loving and loveable priest.
          Our country and our world so desperately need the witness of such men and women who help the rest of us to reach hope for things unseen. Thank you NPR for helping us to remember.Â
         

  • Terry Tree Tree

    Watching this tragedy, as it happened, I, and many others thought that ‘W’ was bringing about the “Pearl Harbor”, they said they needed!  Many things that we have seen, since then, re-inforce that initial thought, durring a disaster!

  • Spunk

    Unfortunately it seems Bin Laden got what he wanted. The US has spent itself, in the name of safety, into the ground.  Our civil liberties are at stake.  The secret operations of the government have ballooned.  The US military is engaged in 2 Middle Eastern countries.  The list goes on.  I fear he knew us better than we know ourselves.

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/Paolo-Caruso/1778940602 Paolo Caruso

      Perhaps the geniuses that supported OBL and created Al Qaeda, foresaw the financial balloons bursting and the depression coming. Many seen it coming, myself included.  Perhaps the “men behind the curtain” (neocons, bankers, PNAC, etc)  planned to secure the country against revolt of its own people in sight of economic decline.  Perhaps they saw the defense, intelligence and security industries as the only was to compete and gain leverage in a global economy?

      Looked at it this way. Everybody became a robocop and a stormtrooper.  Even the mall security guard is dressed like a swat team commando.  Without the bank bailouts and the economic boost of this defense, intelligence, security industry, and the middle east land grab, the dollar would have already collapsed and the country would have already been in a deep depression.

  • Marker Institute

    I am still haunted by my face to face encounter with M. Atta in the airport terminal of Logan airport in Boston five months before the attacks. I was already on the other side of the glass, in the boarding area, and he was studying the departures on a TV screen. It was clear to me that he was doing this with a clear plan in mind and at the time I couldn’t help but notice the State Trooper having a laugh while Atta’s taxi sat in a no standing zone, idling, without a glimmer of doubt from the policeman.Â
    Why did I know something was up and not the Trooper? That’s what I ask. I also ask myself why the FBI agent that I contacted never followed up on the information I gave her. I honestly can’t figure that out. I know its not a conspiracy on the part of law enforcement. Yet when I see police in my neighborhood not even bother to simple pull over for a moment and shut off the engine of the car–to listen; well, it make’s me think they just aren’t trained to do anything useful until after the crime is committed.
    I drove a truck into the WTC loading dock one day before the 1993 bombing. My crew and I discussed that event for months afterward and we knew then that the bombers hadn’t done their research on the type of construction they were dealing with. We also knew that someone would be inspired to succeed and that they’d have to use airplanes to do it.
    On September 12 I got a few emails reminding me of how I had predicted this would happen. I responded that it was not something to be proud of and it still saddens me that a laymen could draw the lines for this event, but people paid to do so could not.

    • jim

      I think I met one of the hijackers in boston when he was a taxi driver in 2000. then, he preaches the talibans were doing the right thing for afghanistan on my whole trip from Logan. darn, the trip suppose to cost $25… but due to his ranting and purposefully slowing the car to let me hear his rhetoric, it costs me $45…  

      • Ellen Dibble

        The hijackers thought the TALIBAN were helping Afghanistan?  I thought the allegiance of the one to the other was more about  expediency.  By the way, if I were a year from attacking on American soil, and were ON American soil, talking to a taxi driver — not to a priest or mental health counselor — I would NOT be laying out my ideology, especially making someone effectively pay for the privilege of listening.
           Who else heard these rationales and thought, they aren’t even discreet?

  • Dukegreg

    We must note that it was Gov. Swift who appointed a friend with no aviation experience to MassPort who in turn put a limo fleet owner with no aviation experience in charge of security at Logan. This cost us uncountable losses. Let us be sure to appoint only people with the skills to handle the job. Let us check today who has a patronage appointment!

    • TFRX

      I’d forgotten about that.

      I thought Bernard Kerik held the title of “Worst Patronage Appointee to Get Their Name in the News as a Result of 9/11″.

      • Anonymous

        Paul Bremer in Iraq has to be the most costly.  Oh, I forgot, Iraq invasion had nothing to do with 9-11.

  • AW

    I vividly remember sitting on the floor, holding the phone as my husband told me to turn on the TV, and looking at my two-month-old daughter who was having her morning “tummy time.” I spent the next hour on the floor with my daughter, looking at this innocent little baby, and wondering what her world was going to be now. 

  • Herodotus

    “It’s not ‘lest we forget,’ it’s ‘lest we remember.’ That’s what all this is about -the memorials, the Cenotaph, the two minutes’ silence. Because there is no better way of forgetting something than by commemorating it.” Alan Bennett, “The History Boys”

  • David

    I was in Colorado on business. That morning I was working out in the hotel fitness room and after finishing I walked into the lobby to see people staring at the TV. A plane had hit one of the towers and we were all wondering about this terrible “accident”, when, as we watched, the second plane hit the other tower. Shock set in, we were stunned and immediately knew then that this was an attack.

    I quickly ran back to my room and started trying to reach my wife who was at work in Marlborough, MA and my daughter who was attending college in Boston. You may recall that there were initial reports of possible terrorists in Boston and I was panicking trying to reach my family. Of course phone lines were jammed, but I eventually got through and ascertained that they were OK.

    It was a terrifying morning!

  • http://gregorycamp.wordpress.com/ Greg Camp

    This was my reaction two days after the event:

    http://gregorycamp.wordpress.com/category/911/

    • Steve T

      We may not agree on what happened on 9/11. But you poem was good! Bravo.

  • Maggie

    The weekend before September 11th, my husband and I drove from Chicago to Boston, through Canada. The border crossing was peaceful and easy. We returned to Chicago the weekend after, and everywhere we drove, we saw American flags. At every stop along the way, strangers sat together and talked and related in ways we had never seen. As I began graduate school that September, my professors commented that they has never has such an open and cohesive class. The horror of that September day changed the way we all related to each other as Americans

  • Michiganjf

    I’m still astounded by the disproportional response of the U.S. to a mere nineteen men with box-cutters…

    … YES, the nineteen managed to highjack jetliners with those boxcutters and use them incredibly effectively as weapons of mass destruction…

    … but the fact remains, IT WAS NINETEEN POORLY EQUIPPED ATTACKERS!!!

    Look at what we ourselves have wrought on our country by the absurdly disproportional response!!

    I’d much rather have seen all those trillions spent to secure our borders, and perhaps to inspect some significant percentage of what comes in to our ports… we’re still COMPLETELY vulnerable in the areas that matter because 99% of our focus has been abroad rather than at home.

    • Michiganjf

      … and IRAQ??!!!!

      I mean, come on!!!!

  • Rhodes

    We learned to be afraid out of all proportion to the danger and we gave unscrupulous politicians among us a weapon which they have not hesitated to use against democracy.
    RhodesÂ
    Winchester< KY

    • Anonymous

      Not to mention that select few who, while most of us were getting all weepy and patriotic, figured out how to make a lot of money off the moment.

  • Ellen Dibble

    I believe terrorism has existed with or without abortion.  I was at the health food store, asking what the pennyroyal was for.  I remember hearing about that as far back as when Peter Rabbit was my bedtime story.  It brings about abortion.  There was an anecdote to go with the explanation about someone driving while under the influence of it.  It also is an insect repellent, so I have some.  I suppose the terrorists should be considering that health store as well for its information and products.  People discovered these herbs long, long ago, when terrorism meant storming in with a torch, that sort of thing.  I am convinced that kind of thing happens regardless of those herbs and their intentional or unintentional use, or for that matter regardless of the behavior of men vis-a-vis procreation.

  • Errol Wright

    I left United Air in Boston @7:00, headed for McLean, VA. Landed in Dulles and had to wait for car rental (never happens). By the time we got into the car, the 1st. tower was hit. When we got to the office the 2nd. tower was hit, and shortly there after the Pentagon. Fellow employees went up to the roof of our building to observe the smoking Pentagon. All missing planes were suspected, a little later the PA plane was brough down. We drove the rental back to Boston unable to get in touch with family until somewhere in PA, my family was frantic as I hadn’t told them my flight information, it was only a 1 day trip. I’ll never forget that day as I cried much of the way back as I became aware all the people who were murdered.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Paolo-Caruso/1778940602 Paolo Caruso

    EVERY
    single aspect of 9/11 is a stretch of credibility.   It is full of literally hundreds of anomalies and illogic.   Its
    like the teacher having to believe the kids homework was eaten by the dog one
    day,  the next day it flushed down the
    toilet,  the next it flew out the bus
    window,  next dropped into the sewer
    grate,  then it got sucked into a jet
    engine,  then stolen by a thief,  on an on.   The 9/11 war on terror is no less in its requisite level of religious patriotism
    to believe the official story.

     

    From the
    very first report of 9/11, my suspicions were eventually voiced by others.

    Every
    aspect, from collapsing buildings and melting metal,  to terrorist
    passport found in the rubble.   The first
    time I heard Daniel Lewins story,  I
    realized the guy was an elite Mossad commando, on the brink of a business failure, who just happened to be on flight 11, sitting between hijackers
    and got stabbed by a guy whose passport happened to be found in tact in the
    inferno dust.   

    We go on and on to OBL being found watching
    porno on a Pakistani military garrison, but his body was dumped in the ocean
    that night, with no photos and a helicopter crash at the OBL site with NO seal casualties
    until a few months later when the Seal Team 6 loses 22 guys while riding a
    National Guard chopter on a rescue mission?????? Choreographed delayed deaths would ya say??   I’m
    sorry folks but there are those of us that think and READ other than Fox News, and not
    to sound elitist by our IQs are above average.

    • http://gregorycamp.wordpress.com/ Greg Camp

      This is your 9/11 memory?

      • http://www.facebook.com/people/Paolo-Caruso/1778940602 Paolo Caruso

        Yes indeed. My memory is of total suspicion.  After seeing Bill Clinton bomb Iraq and Serbia, news bureaus and Chinese embassy, on the eve of his Lewinsky impeachment and the US allied with drug lords to open Kosovo to US markets,  and knowing the US banking and real estate bubble was years away,  I knew 9/11 could have never happened by a few guys in a cave in afghanistan and a few middle class 20 year olds with boxcutters and a cesna training. 

        • http://gregorycamp.wordpress.com/ Greg Camp

          Why not?  Individuals can’t do big things?  There must be a cabal of shadowy figures to do it?  Come on.  What we see is that governments have a hard time keeping secrets and carrying out schemes, while individuals pull it off all the time.

        • TnTeacher

          It wasn’t Cesna training, it was passenger aircraft flight simulators.

  • Rational

    I was listening to NPR, and then went to the TV to check it out.

    My first thought was of a radio program I was listening to while driving to work in the late eighties (I think it was also NPR).  They had a mid-east analyst discussing the rage of fundamentalists in the mid-east. He was saying that they will attack the US in a way to take as many lives as they feel is necessary to balance the books. And he went on and on about how the future would look unless we start to pay serious attention to this region….

    And he has been proven a true visionary of the reality that we are now living with.

  • A_scott_a

    Tom, for me it wasn’t the tower attacks, it was the anthrax – what a strange thing, for a simultaneous attack from a very different quarter, never answered. I was editing a journal dependant on authors from the DC area at the time and was unable to recieve anything by mail for six weeks. I think the anthrax attacks turned Sept. 11 into a truly surreal experience, so strange we seem unable to talk about it, even today …   

  • Jbastianini

    I had been living many years outside of the US but when the attacks happened, I felt so American.  It was so hard to be so far away.  I remember that the first time I laughed after was reading the Onion that made a reference to the bombers not finding any virgins!  That reaffirmed the very American ability to be able to find humor and perspective even in terrible tragedy.  I knew then that we would somehow survive.

  • Greta

    My brother and sister-in-law were living and working in New York on September 11th, and I can still remember my heart pounding as I tried, frantically, to reach them. Amazingly, I reached my sister-in-law on her cell phone, and found out they were safe. But she could not contact her family in Paris to let them know. I was able to reach her Aunt, and I will never forget the sound of her voice when I told her they were safe.

  • Michiganjf

    Yes, France and others were fully with us, and then…

    Freedom Fries!

  • Steve t

    I question why the first responders are not welcome to this memorial. Yes we’ve changed and not for the better. Manny of us doubt the actions of our government, then and now.

  • Henry

    The 9-11 attacks were truly terrible, but what is striking to me is how little Americans have reflected on how terrifying the air strikes and bombings we have inflicted on other countries must have been to citizens of other countries during, for example, the first Gulf War or Viet Nam. Were not our actions equally horrifying, and much more deadly? It seems that 9-11 should have moved us to more compansion in our foreign policies and military activities. 

    • Ellen Dibble

      Or what about the Shock and Awe, that was more or less appointment TV?  Supposedly that would kill Saddam Hussein, but it required a kind of blindness not to appreciate that a population was paying a steep price, paired with the fact we might not be getting the whole story.  Wasn’t this a costly “show”?  Costly in reputation for starters.  And who would be wanting to spend so much money on such a bombing?  I guess we did learn that targeting a city does not guarantee catching a villain.  The Libyan rebels apparently have learned that, anyway, considering Beni Walid.  

  • Erin in Iowa

    I was married to a Marine stationed at Camp Pendleton in CA.  We lived off the base at the time and he couldn’t come home for three days.  I couldn’t reach him or my family in Iowa by phone – the lines were tied up until late that night.  I was so afraid for our military friends and their families.  I’m tearing up even now.

    As a gunner in a helicopter, he was in the first round of troops sent to Iraq.  Thank heavens he came home safely.

  • Terry Tree Tree

    One reason that we did NOT pull together as a country, is that there were too many obvious lies, and any that pointed them out, were labelled as ‘unpatriotic’, even though we had better millitary records that ‘W’, the drunk AWOL, Deserter!

  • Dorian

    (I have to type this, instead of calling, because I could not relay this over the air without breaking down)

    On September 11th, my brother Quentin was an American Airlines Flight Attendant, flying out of Boston to the west coast. He was probably the last person on the ground to see Flight Attendant Betty Ong on AA Flight 11 alive. He and Betty were friends, and he saw her that morning on the jet bridge leading to Flight 11. She asked if he was coming to LA with them today, and at that point he realized he was on the wrong jet bridge. He gave her a hug and a kiss, they wished each other well, and off they headed off to their respective flights and very different destinies. Betty Ong was the flight attendant who called in to flight control and read the passenger roster to officials, so they knew who was on board and who the terrorists were. She was brave and courageous, and as she was transmitting the vital information, Flight 11 hit the World Trade Towers. 

    Quentin’s flight was brought down with a forced landing in Chicago, where they were grounded for a week due to the no-fly enforcement. For my own part, I knew my brother was flying to the west coast that day, and after I learned that an American Airlines flight had crashed into the towers, I spent a very scary couple of hours trying to contact American Airlines Flight Services to find out if that was the flight my brother was on. Finally, I was told that he was not. My relief was immense, but as with the rest of the country, my shock and grief at the events of September 11th were overwhelming. It is all coming back to me now, the pain, the fear, the incomprehension of the magnitude of what had just happened. And then the silence. No planes in the air. Nothing. Everything had changed that day, and nothing has ever been the same since.

    – Dorian, South Kingstown, RI

  • Joady

    What could we have done to retain the world’s respect? We could have reacted appropriately! Even a jingoistic US president could have seen that most of the perpetrators were Saudis, and challenged us to wean ourselves of Saudi dependency. Motivated Americans could have reduced our oil consumption by 20% in six months I would bet. Secondly the bully pulpit should have focused on trusting each other and relying on each other, since lack of communication was one problem. A national meet-your-neighbors program might have knit us together. I had many more ideas at the time, all much more respect-earning than the exhortation to “shop” that we received.

  • thegreengrass

    Definitely agree with the caller Matt about having everything you think and know about the world change after 9/11. I was 17 and it was the second day of my senior year of high school. Being that age with 9/11 happening was beyond bizarre, because you saw all the adults who you thought knew everything about the world, how it worked, and what to do in any situation having no idea what to do and what happens next.

  • Lena

    I was at home with my children (my son was 8 months old).  I turned on the tv to Katie Couric announcing there had been a plane crash into the tower.  When I saw the second plane, I knew it was not an accident.  To watch the subsequent chaos was terrifying and I worried about my friends who worked in office towers in Boston.Â
    During that terrifying time I realized that I was an American.  I had come to this country as a child of twelve from Portugal and had always thought of myself as a Portuguese who lived in America (even though I had gotten my citizenship).  I was so worried about losing everything that America stood for in my eyes!Â
    During this sad anniversary I worry that the recent turmoil in Washington threatens what America (the land that I LOVE) stood for for me on that day.

  • Me

    I remember watching the incompetence of GW Bu$h and the rest of the “republican$”.

  • Jessmesser

    i was 2 weeks away from my due date on 9/11, pregnant with my first child. i was at work on the upper east side when the first plane struck and spent the following several hours trying to get home to brooklyn. “if we are going to die,” i told my husband, “i want us to be together.” since the island of manhattan was shut down, i wanted to walk home but my husband and colleagues talked me out of it. so i waited and watched the nightmare unfold, like the rest of the world.Â
    in the late afternoon i walked to a friend’s house across the park and waited to the trains to start running again to manhattan. i went to the subway station and was amazed by the number of people trying to get on trains to speed them away from the horror. anyone who was in NYC that day will remember how dreadfully silent it was, and the subway station was no different, a huge, quiet mob. i realized it could a potentially dangerous situation with all those people, and me very pregnant, but i wanted more than anything to get home so plunged headlong into the throng.Â
    the platform was a crush of bodies and i was starting to try to turn around to try to leave when i realized that space was opening around me. in the silence, people were looking at me and my big pregnant belly and moving to form a protective barrier. it was one of the most beautiful, primal moments of my life. the crowd, silently, became my guard. at that moment of such loss everyone seemed to want more than anything to protect the future, my baby.Â
    this continued as we shuffled onto the train, they escorted me to a seat, reformed a semi circle around me as we rode on. over the manhattan bridge everyone cried as they looked at the smoke, ash, debris floating through the air. and when the train stopped people walked me up the steps and into the sunlight of brooklyn. not a word was said. i have never felt more safe. my son will turn 10 in a couple of weeks. he is a beautiful boy with an easy smile, full of wonder – people are drawn to him. i tell him he was blessed by that group of strangers, how he was so surrounded by love and hope on that terrible day. how a silent and broken city came together to keep him safe. it is a day i will never forget – i saw the very worst and very best of humanity and was humbled by the beauty that came come out of the ashes.

  • Charles

    On 9/11/01, I was an installer for a satellite dish company.  I had just installed and had activated a service for a new customer, and the first thing we saw on the TV was the news coverage of the first tower being struck. The customer and I thought it was a movie with outstanding special effects… until another plane hit the second tower.  

    I remember thinking, as I watched about 30 minutes of the footage before moving on to my next install, that we were going to get this all wrong.  To me, it was a message from “the rest of the world” that the United States had treated everyone else badly and there were certain people out there who weren’t going to take it anymore (sort of the classic bully payback).  I believed that we would not listen, that we would puff up our collective chest and rage back at the world.  I was right, and I couldn’t be more sad.

    I have heard dozens, if not hundreds, of times since that, “we all came together that day and in the days immediately following”.  No… we did not.  

    Ten years later, I am still saddened by our lack of understanding of other cultures of the world, and our enduring attempts to either quash or subjugate those cultures we find ourselves unable to “market”.  I do not remotely feel any safer today, but I have never lived in fear.  I am still hoping to someday see the USA embrace the diversity of the world and begin working to find a way to become a true global citizen, a direction that I believe would make a better end to terrorism and hatred than our current “War”.

  • jim c

    I just heard about the American (lady) who was living in France on 9/11. she mentioned France and the whole world was 100% behind America.

    to think about how the whole world perceives us now, it is quite an American tragedy equal to 9/11.

    the notion of hearing “Freedom Fries” is just wrong. Our leaders then should be ashamed for the many actions that were purely self-motivated, especially the invasion of Iraq. (yes, George H, your son has done you proud by wiping out and liquidating the entire Hussein family, including his grandchildren).

    I still believe in this country and its original values, but we have to hard work to win back the trust and respect from the international community.

  • Ellen Dibble

    Someone called me from a courthouse to tell me about the first airplane hitting, so I started to watch.  I was watching on behalf of those at work.  When the second airplane hit, there was almost no time at all before the Pentagon hit.  The channel I was watching, probably ABC, showed a long-distance shot of smoke from across the river, and asked if “something might have gone wrong” there.  So before an hour was up we were thinking what next, how might I be called upon, how might we be called upon.  And by the time we were watching one tower and then the other, we were on the one hand watching a very slow-motion mass murder; we were on the other hand thinking of all the grounded aircraft and the multiple vulnerabilities that the government might not be anticipating.
        If human wishes could have put out the fires and held up the buildings, I’m sure everyone watching was projecting their minds and bodies into the situation and pulling for everyone there.  I worried about the air quality, and about Americans being unprepared to know how to feel, what to do.  The plane that came down in Shanksville was a sublime last act for that day, because it showed — well, I have no words.  That was better than having the towers come down last.

  • Ehdoss

    Bush and Cheney responded to a sophisticated 911 attack with their simplistic response, If you don’t like it, bomb it.

    Missino Accomplished.

  • Jwryan

    I recall walking past the Operations Desk at the 55th Fighter Squadron, Shaw AFB, SC and seeing on CNN that an airliner had struck one of the World Trade Center towers. Exceedingly odd but odd things happen. Shortly later we saw the second plane strike and it was obvious to all that it was a deliberate, coordinated attack. I also recall that for us in the military it was not a great surprise that such a thing happened, only the precise form the attack took.

  • George W

    PLEASE Don’t Play any more CLIPs from that RAT BASTARD Gorge W.
    He was the worst Prez EVER He & Chaney should be put up for WAR crimes.More of our boys & Girls have died in HIS war than 911 ! When are we going to have a week remembering Them ??

  • dale

    i was watching good morning america…finishing the last of my coffee..finger on the remote ready shut the TV off and head to work…when matt said “we’re getting news of a fire in the WTC”…the second hit happened so fast i didn’t see it until they replayed it in slow motion…my first thought…clear as a bell “they knew…those bastards knew”…

  • Paul, Boston MA

    We could have come together to improve the country in unimaginable ways in the weeks and years that followed 9/11. But we didn’t.

    Look at what we’ve become today.

    Bin-Laden has won.

  • Judydunn57

    I have never felt as much shame about being an American as I did in the years after 9/11.  The ordinary became simultaneously unimportant, and yet more important at the same time.

  • Ehdoss

    How quickly everyone forgets the pre-911 days. 

    I remember all the Republican love as they tried to impeach a successful President a few years earlier.

    911 was an excuse to implement wars Bush II wanted to carry out anyway, WMD’s or no WMD’s.

  • Mishy L.

    For me there are two September 11ths: the one that happened to us here in the U.S. and the one that happened to the Chilean people on September 11, 1973.  I was living there at the time, participating in Chile’s bold experiment in social justice.  I went there in 1971 as a student with a burning question: why do so many people in the world seem to hate my country?  After Nixon and Kissinger helped crush the government of Salvador Allende and impose a brutal military dictatorship that terrorized the Chilean people, it makes me sad to recognize that today many more people have disdain for my country. 

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/Paolo-Caruso/1778940602 Paolo Caruso

      Hey Mishy,  For some reason, my this post has been removed three time already, but given your post,  I’d be interested as to your MEMORIES when smirking George Bush appointed Henry Kissinger to head the 9/11 Investigation Committee ( he turned it down of course).  

       To me it felt like some kind of coup took place in the USA.

  • TnTeacher

    When I hear the voices of that day I shake with emotion except when I hear Bush’s voice and think of how this is the guy who didn’t believe in government, this is the guy who spent the majority of his first year (127 days out of 170) as President cutting  brush on the ranch ignoring warnings and how those voices are telling us the same thing today: that Gov’t is the problem not the solution as if some individual could have put those disparate pieces of information together and prevented the attack. Maybe it couldn’t have but I think what a different world we would live in if there had been a President Gore. History is cumulative and allowing thing to fester and collect until they reach critical mass when there is no turning back seems unwise in the extreme.

  • Lilly

    C’mon Tom Ashbrook.

    Box Cutters?  What Box Cutters?

    Do you mean Barbara Olsen’s Box Cutters????????????????????????

    • http://gregorycamp.wordpress.com/ Greg Camp

      Barbara Olsen died in the plane that hit the Pentagon.  Are you really this callous?

      • Brett

        Yes!

  • shaun, salt lake city

    I feel these events called us to examine our relationship with the world. Unfortunately we responded with force and violence which I also understand. I hope that we can fundamentally change how we move forward in our relationships with other countries and with our country, because this is not a situation that can be soved by invading or killing others. 

    We have become a country of fear and denial, and we are creating a government of shadows that actually works against the people it is suposed to work for. 

    shaun

  • http://gregorycamp.wordpress.com/ Greg Camp

    How is a building supposed to fall, except straight down?

    Do you Truthers realize that steel softens before it melts?

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/Paolo-Caruso/1778940602 Paolo Caruso

      A jet fuel (kerosene) fire creates molten metal for days ????

    • Terry Tree Tree

      The number of coincidences that would have to happen, in just the right order, at just the right times, for the ‘Official” story to work, would be in the Septillion range of odds!  Would you bet on those odds?

      • http://gregorycamp.wordpress.com/ Greg Camp

        You have it exactly backwards.  For the government to pull off a conspiracy of this nature would require many pieces holding together without anyone giving anything away or growing a conscience.  Do you really believe that our government is that competent?

        • Brett

          I gotta hand it to you, you’ve got more energy than I have! Thanks, Greg. I find that everything becomes circular in conversing with a Truther; and, a thin-skinned bunch, they, becoming rude at the slightest hint of a differing view.  

          • Rob Haywood

            Your are so right Brett. Ignorance is hard to deal with, but Greg is doing a great job of trying.

          • Brett

            I suppose you intend to mean that Greg is ignorant…why do you guys think that couching rude remarks as backhanded compliments is so clever? You also imply that you know what happened, and who was responsible, and that you know it is different than the official story…it’s quite humble of you not to cash in on such knowledge. Greg strikes me as an intelligent, educated and aware person, hardly someone to quickly characterize as ignorant. 

            There is a kind of religious zealousness to Truthers (i.e., they know the real truth and reject all other false truths). Selective reasoning also seems to be a common denominator. E.g., first responders’/eyewitness accounts that fit the Truther narrative can NOT be dismissed or denied and prove the official story is false and indicative of a conspiracy; first responders’/eyewitness accounts that don’t fit the Truther narrative ARE to be dismissed, as eyewitness accounts are not reliable, and so on…

          • http://www.facebook.com/people/Paolo-Caruso/1778940602 Paolo Caruso

            Brett, actually it take religious zealousness and a fervent patriotic faith to believe the official story of 9/11.    The truthers are the thinkers looking at facts and logic.

          • Brett

            More facts, “common logic” and above average intelligence at work. 

          • http://gregorycamp.wordpress.com/ Greg Camp

            Cheers!

          • Terry Tree Tree

            My rudeness, Please?

        • http://www.facebook.com/people/Paolo-Caruso/1778940602 Paolo Caruso

          The government doesnt have to be competent.   As long as the populous is asleep and preoccupied with food, entertainment and paying down debt.

        • Terry Tree Tree

          Consider the least number of people in the government, and in private ‘Security’ firms, that could bring this off?

    • Steve t

      Like your brain has softened to mush. Just saying something so stupid and brainless at trying to be dismissive of what really happened.

      Do you Liers realize that steel wont melt from a simple fire?

      • http://gregorycamp.wordpress.com/ Greg Camp

        Did I say that it melted?  Refer to Bruce in Providence’s comment above.  Steel softens, losing its load-bearing capacity long before it melts.

        • Steve t

          The bottom of the building was not on fire. Don’t reply just think about it.

          • http://gregorycamp.wordpress.com/ Greg Camp

            I am going to reply.  The top floors were a static load before the planes hit.  When the steel gave way and the top floors began the collapse, that load became dynamic, imposing much greater force downward.  Each successive floor adds to that force.  What confuses you here?

          • Steve T

            Your stupidity! Like the caller I was talking about WTC#7 Why did it fall? Where are the titanium engine’s from the airplane that hit the Pentagon?  We are to believe that that they liquified and were sucked into the building? I don’t think so.
             What confuses me are people like you who will believe a lie in the face of the truth.

          • http://gregorycamp.wordpress.com/ Greg Camp

            WTC 7 fell hours later, after the cumulative effects of fire and the pressure of the 1 and 2 coming down.  Why are you moving the goal posts?  First, it’s the Twin Towers.  I answer that one, so you jump to WTC 7.  What would you accept as good enough to support the standard model of what happened?

          • Steve T

            The unadulterated TRUTH!

          • http://gregorycamp.wordpress.com/ Greg Camp

            Why do you insist that you’re not getting it?  Complex events don’t have simple answers, but the standard model explains things well.

          • Steve T

            Then why are your answers so simple as to, How is a building supposed to fall, except straight down?

            Who’s standard model?

            You have just exposed yourself…quick cover up with something complex.

          • http://gregorycamp.wordpress.com/ Greg Camp

            I mean that there may be stray facts that don’t fit, but the standard model–the official story, as others call it–explains the events.

          • Steve T

            Facts don’t lie, if they don’t fit the standard model, the model is a lie.
            You can try to explain a lie but you have to know, that only works on the gullible and uneducated.

          • Rob Haywood

            Steve,Â
            you have done a great job de-bunking Greg’s idiot mindless, baseless fallacies. you will never convince some people, even with facts. Ocam’s Razor will never satisfy some people.

          • http://gregorycamp.wordpress.com/ Greg Camp

            Let’s see–we watched the planes hit the towers; we saw the burning; we saw the collapse.  Occam’s razor here is on my side.

          • Rob Haywood

            Greg,
            Couldn’t have said it better myself.

          • http://gregorycamp.wordpress.com/ Greg Camp

            Please identify what fallacies I’ve said.

          • http://www.facebook.com/people/Paolo-Caruso/1778940602 Paolo Caruso

            Gentlemen, please,  Greg Camp is just trying do his job, upholding truth and freedom on NPR.  He doesnt have time to get into detail or logic.

            (read this quickly as my posts are typically censored,  although in stating so they may let this one stay). 

          • http://gregorycamp.wordpress.com/ Greg Camp

            Any explanation will leave out some facts, since we don’t get the entire picture.  The best explanation will account for the most facts.

  • Me

    the 911 doubter just on is nuts.

    • Steve T

      If you think he is nuts you defiantly are. You are the guy that gets slapped on the back of your head by the guy standing next to you, and think it’s someone else when he points away from himself. Because that’s what really happened. And your just stupid enough to think Oh my friend wouldn’t do that.

      • Me

        you are the guy who types random nonsense and expects everyone to stand back and admire your brilliance of thought.

        • Upyours

          I know you. You are the typical low life scum troll who likes to wrap it’s self with the flag and make false claims of service to country. Only thing you’ve done for country probably to use up oxygen, food stamps and social services.

          • Steve T

            Thanks for that proof. You REALLY don’t know anything about me.
            So up yours, Upyours.

          • Upyours

            taliban wanna be

      • Upyours

        You are the guy who stands alone in an empty parking lot (because nobody will stand with you) and then think you got hit on the back of the head because you read about somebody else getting hit on the back of the head on some blog on the internet AND who then expects the entire world to stop on it’s tracks to listen to your neurotic whining rants. So shut your trap unless you have a advanced degree in metallurgics, structural engineering, physics and chemistry and forensic science.

        • Steve T

          It seem you have an advanced degree in BS. You don’t know me so take your name and use it.

    • Terry Tree Tree

      The following exchange does no one any good, and exposes the extreme of each belief!

  • Stephanie Harris

    What a shame we didn’t have thoughtful and resourceful leaders in 2001. Joe Wilson suggested how we COULD have responded–go after Bin Laden with a multinational coalition and at home turn our expertise and resources to finding replacements for oil.  9/11 is sad for all the families involved.  For the nation, it is sad how we ended up squandering a decade in so many ways. 

  • Terry Tree Tree

    It IS NOT just one thread that supports questions about the official 9/11 ‘story’.

    • http://gregorycamp.wordpress.com/ Greg Camp

      No, Truthers insert themselves into everything, regardless of relevance.

  • CraiginJersey

    It wasn’t fear driving our response, it was REVENGE.

  • Lilly

    What do we want?

    WE WANT A NEW INVESTIGATION TO THE COLLAPSES OF THE BUILDINGS THAT KILLED 2700 PEOPLE.

    Jack Beatty:  The cost of a new investionation to your family will be 47 cents.  You did not do your research …. why are you so “against” a new investigation.  I will pay your share of 47 cents.

    I will pay the for shares of the entire WBUR staff.  Why is the “default” position of the media is laziness, ignorance, fear, poetry, tears, denial and refusal to look into the evidence.

    Bush speaking:
    There is nothing to investigateNo need for a commissionHenry Kissenger is my candidate for dis-investigationI will not tesifyIf I do, I cannot be aloneCheney has to come with meNo filming of the processYes, but no cameras, either.I want to see the questions in advanceNo voice recordingNobody will take notes

    • http://gregorycamp.wordpress.com/ Greg Camp

      A new investigation?  Do you mean an investigation that will reach the conclusion that you want?  There have already been investigations, and their conclusions are good.  The media isn’t being lazy.  It’s doing its job.  In this case, that means not echoing nonsense.

      • http://www.facebook.com/people/Paolo-Caruso/1778940602 Paolo Caruso

        “good” is not good enough.  Many people have died because the wars unjustly launched from  9/11

        • http://gregorycamp.wordpress.com/ Greg Camp

          How about correct?  Valid?

  • Glenn K

    When I hear skeptics saying that there were bombs in the buildings, etc.  Or that there was no plane crash in Pennsylvania.  But what about the people on board who died?
    The point is that it doesn’t matter, really.  After all, no matter what the story about how, the result is what matters.  Who cares if there was a conspiracy.  Perhaps there was.  You don’t need bombs in buildings or fake plane crashes to have a conspiracy.  The conspiracy could easily have been to cause exactly what was reported in the first place (suicide pilots actually did fly planes into buildings).
    What matters is that 10 years later, we are still using our huge war machine to respond and it’s having the same results as usual.
    My question is, when will we stop to admit that, as the world’s last superpower, we are still using our economic power, for what’s it worth, to rape the rest of the world for the resources and labor we want in order to benefit our lifestyle?  We are ignoring how rapacious we really are.  No wonder there are people out there who want to attack us!  This is not about a war against freedom.  It is about a ‘war’ (if you will) against absolute power (almost) that has corrupted us absolutely (almost).

    • S2

      Of course it matters.  Everything else you say is true, but it matters.  Truth matters.  Our government is raping the world because we allow it to manipulate us.

  • Bruce in Providence

    As a scientific aside…steel doesn’t have to melt to cause the failure we saw.  At ~700 degrees Fahrenheit, steel loses ~1/2 of its stiffness.  That is, under the same load, it will deflect twice as far as at room temperature.  The planes fly in, jet fuel ignites, temperatures go up and the steel joists supporting the floor(s) above start to heat up and sag until they give way (pull away from the columns).

    The exterior columns are also heating up, so their load carrying capacity drops and now they have an unbraced length that has gone up due to a lack of steel joists framing into them and they give way.  Next thing you know,more floors drop and the impact starts the whole thing down.

    • S2

      jet fuel does not burn at 700 degrees either.

      • http://gregorycamp.wordpress.com/ Greg Camp

        Yes, that too.  You’ve seen a steel foundry, perhaps?

      • Bruce in Providence

        Correct.  It burns in a diffuse fire that is fuel-rich at ~600 degrees.  At 425 degrees it starts to soften and by 650-700 it has lost half its strength.

        Rather than precise units and say that it lost 42% (or 37% or 46%) I used 50% for illustration. 

    • Terry Tree Tree

      BOTH buildings JUST happened to have ALL elevators open at the floor the plane hit?  What is the temperature that the jet fuels used burn in open air?   Was the support steel in the elevator shafts?  Totally exposed?   You find NO questions?

  • Rob Haywood

    George Bush when standing on the rubble of the WTC, should have said this:”3000 plus of our citizens paid the price for freedom on Sept. 11. They were unknowingly brought into a conflict not of their own choosing. In their memory and to ensure our future security we will pursue the people who did this. BUT, we will not dishonour their memory or sacrifice by undermining our freedoms. We will not make enemies around the world acting in vengeance, our response will be measured and careful.  This is the only way we can say we will have won this conflict.All Americans are now on notice that terrorism is a risk, one our government will do it’s utmost to counter. But, not by turning the USA into a police state. Therefore ALL Americans, not just the soldiers who we will put in harm’s way, but all of us, might someday give our lives, not knowing when, for the freedom most of us would assert that we WOULD defend, with our lives.

  • Martin

    Tom, your show was so hauntingly beautiful, I was so moved by how you carried out the conversation commemorating 9/11. Thank you for your show, and thank you for hosting some of the best conversations I’ve heard in my life, and by your keen insights into what’s happening in the world right now. I hope to be able listen to your show for many years to come.

    • http://twitter.com/iambrandsuz Suz Carter

      Remembering On Point airing in the evenings during the days after. Â
      On Point gave me news in a way I could take it in.
      Thank you.

  • http://gregorycamp.wordpress.com/ Greg Camp

    Paolo Caruso,

    But you’re saying that no one involved gave anything away.  No one had
    an attack of conscience.  No one got drunk in a bar and talked.  That
    strains credibility.

    • Terry Tree Tree

      Manhattan Project had 35,000 people keep a secret.  If you were part of 9/11, and realized what you had been part of, you would be wary of revealing it!

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/Paolo-Caruso/1778940602 Paolo Caruso

      The whistle blowers write books about this stuff.  No need to be drunk.   Few people care to investigate the truth.

  • http://www.facebook.com/isafakir Isa Kocher

    i was in oman between jobs in a howard johnsons hotel and watched it from the 8:45 first plane without sleeping for two weeks, cnn bbc and al jazeera. it changed my life. all my friends in oman muslim and non muslim reacted with racist hate without a hint of humility or comprehension. i lost all but one or two friends. some verty sincere muslims understood it was an attack on islam, on faith, on human decency… no americans i knew had any comprehension, and just buried themselves in racism. the only comprehensible comment was by tosun byrak, a sufi sheikh in ny, jerrahiye, on NPR. who saw what i saw.

    september 11th, 2001 changed my life. the collapse of the wtc was the worst event in my life, a life full of truly awful events. i lost my faith in america completely though i was endlessly infinitely proud of being a new yorker. the usa response to this was psychotic racist blind hate without comprehension whipped up by robber barons for private prophet by bush and cheney and wall street.

    i can’t tell you how deeply i loved the wtc. only recently did i learn it was designed completely using islamic architectural motifs and design elements and over an islamic cemetary.

    the goodness of new yorkers could not redeem the bankruptcy of religion and ideology. many millions of good muslims reaching out to us in love could not erace the sight of arabs pakistanis indians even europeans africans asians dancing in the streets of muscat. of people seeing me in arab clothes coming into their stores laughing and singing assuming i shared their barbaric  psychotic demonic obscenenties

    i saw in myself the hatred prejudice anger and lust for revenge. and i saw that the martyrs 3 to 4 thousand martyrs were the lucky ones. i saw in myself the end of civilization in me and my world, and blame bush above all humans for his selfishness in wanting to be president so that osama bin laden could attack us and so his friends could get rich from it. even more than the bin ladens.

    we failed as a people when we were called on to rise up to be who we claimed to be. our churches mosques political parties failed us. we failed them. i failed as a human.

    it’s ten years and i still struggle every minute with the loss of faith in the institutions which failed us. as a muslim i refuse to listen to a damn thing the imams say because they’re only interest is keepingt their power like pope benedict or mcconnel boehner or obama. not one has principles that they won’t sell.

    yes there is a barney frank, a nancy pelosi, a mandela here and there harvey milk MLK Eleanor Roosevelt, FDR, Lincoln who know gandhi or St. Mychal of NYC Fr Judge who gave their lives wealth families honor and heart and soul to give us the strength to be Pierre in War and Peace or Prince Mishkin and put humanity above doctrine religion politics power, as jesus said about the prophets, the monument to MLK is more to celebrate the injustices he fought than to honor the greatness of his soul. So many muslims died in the WTC, restaurant workers first responders house keeping corprate CEOs financiers bankers lawyers people of muslim faith rich and poor, that the hatred expressed against Imam Rauf and the so called “ground zero” mosque shows how far we have fallen as a nation. in every way.

    i am a 100% disabled american vet, from the era of the cuba crisis and vietnam, a fulbright fellow, scholar, life long organizer and manager of NGOs and an educator. not a muslim, as some sort of sociological political economic ideological or dogmatic condition. muslim means pacifist, someone who forgives. i can’t forgive bush or the jingoists who profited. someday god willing. i am what the words in quran call for, someone struggling to believe in something better than all this selfish religious hypocrisy. September 11th, 2001 took away my faith in dogma ideology jingoism religion politics everything but the commitment to humans taking care of humans and each other and all creatures as the only good. love peace prayers.

    i still cry at some of the stories, and terrible sacrifices. ten years on, still finding a better way. there is no god if god is some sort of excuse for anything less than complete and unconditioned forgiveness.

    that is a tough row to hoe but anything else is from the devil. that day new yorkers showed us the way. pray for us father judge.

    • Terry Tree Tree

      You evidently, nor I was responsible for what ‘W’ did!  We CAN keep trying to make a better world!

  • http://gregorycamp.wordpress.com/ Greg Camp

    Caruso,

    What you are claiming requires the silence of the participants in
    advance.  Are you seriously saying that if the evidence were there, the
    news organizations of this country would ignore it?  Our media always
    wants to find some way of criticising the government.  What you are
    claiming would be a huge story.  Can you imagine reporters just leaving
    it alone?

    • Steve T

      Can you imagine reporters just leaving
      it alone?

      They have so far, fear and intimidation work great.

      • http://gregorycamp.wordpress.com/ Greg Camp

        Our reporters are afraid of what?  Please, are you suggesting that our government would send a hit squad to kill a reporter who talks about 9/11?

        • Guest #99

          Van Jones, Kenneth Falk, Debra Mesina

          All fired and/or careers were ended, just because they barely/slightly questioned the events of 9/11

          • http://www.facebook.com/people/Paolo-Caruso/1778940602 Paolo Caruso

            Greg is playing the naive American patriot all is good and fair and reporters never get fired for telling the truth. 

            The media is in lockstep, so a honest reporter has no where else to go when fired for investigating too deeply.

    • Terry Tree Tree

      Some haven’t ignored it!  The others drowned them out!

  • http://gregorycamp.wordpress.com/ Greg Camp

    Caruso,

    So metal that softens and then falls can’t end up molten on the ground once it and the burning fuel concentrates there?

  • Lou Stuart

    I read ALL your comments. I am so ashamed of you Anti Americans living in this beautiful country with me!
    What would you have done after Pearl Harbor? 9/11 was an Act of War.
    You are so filled with hate for President Bush, you forget he inherited a recession from our impeached president, Clinton. We then went on to have 6 sucessful financial years.
    As my Granfather would say ” Kiss the ground…what a country”

    • Anonymous

      FDR began war against Japan after Pearl Harbor not a country that had nothing to do with it.

      What happened to the surplus Bush inherited? 

      What six successful years?  It was a bubble and fraud.

    • Terry Tree Tree

      Once again I object STRONGLY to being called Anti American!  ‘W’ did that, because I and others objected to his chosen war!  ‘W’ was a drunk AWOL, Deserter!  Some of which he has admitted.Â
          My six years of active-duty millitary service does NOT have ONE time that I did’nt show up for duty because I was drunk!  I made it to each of my new duty stations, even if I hadn’t requested them!  I would have excused myself, within a minute, from being read to by an elementary school teacher, if told that the country was under attack!Â
          And you call me ANTI AMERICAN!

    • Steve T

      I Served for this country proudly, I am a very proud American but not proud of America, what you need is a history lesson.

  • http://gregorycamp.wordpress.com/ Greg Camp

    To WBUR,

    Disqus is acting up as usual.  It doesn’t update for each new post, requiring me to reload the page, and when I try to reply to another’s post, I get an error message.

  • http://gregorycamp.wordpress.com/ Greg Camp

    Caruso,

    Yes, all of those as well.

  • http://gregorycamp.wordpress.com/ Greg Camp

    Caruso,

    Please note that I reported the problem to the website.  I’m not for
    censorship.  I do think that it’s a computer glitch, though.

    • Alex Kingsbury

      Hello Greg (and the rest of the OP crowd),

      Sorry you’re having problems with comments.

      No one in this discussion has been blocked, nor have posts been deleted, unless they violate the station’s guidelines.

      Try clearing out your cookies in your browser. This clears up 90 percent of all the problems that people seem to be having.

      Thanks for your comments!

      Cheers,

      Alex

  • http://gregorycamp.wordpress.com/ Greg Camp

    Caruso,

    If you want to discuss how computers and their programmers are in conspiracy against us, I’m all ears.  But why do you insist on a cabal of evil behind everything?  Doesn’t plain stupidity account for a lot?

  • Anonymous

    It’s hard not to associate 9/11 with a great mudslide of hypocrisy and opportunism — along with the genuine grief and horror.  Or to exclude George W. Bush’s deliberate refusal to respond to a warning that the attack was about to happen, a warning naming the group involved. His lack of action, followed by opportunistic politicization, should be right up front with the replay of videos of those planes, those towers, those falling bodies.

    Tom Engelhardt has written very eloquently about 9/11, expressing what I — and probably many — have experienced in the aftermath of that attack.  His piece should be among those we take to heart as we observe the event, ten years out.

    http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175437

  • Jamil

    One thing I haven’t heard in all the discussion about the impact of 9-11 on America is about how different it was because the super-cynical, ruthless team of Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld were in charge when it happened and that they used the event to achieve their own agendas, especially Iraq and enhanced surveillance. Imagine if Al Gore was our President, as the people (not the Supreme Court) chose him to be. Imagine if a Gore team were in charge. Would Gore and his team have transformed the worldwide support and sympathy the US had won following the tragedy into so much anger, cynicism and hatred of the US as the Bush team did?

  • http://gregorycamp.wordpress.com/ Greg Camp

    O.K., what’s going on?  Paolo Caruso’s posts appear and then disappear.  I disagree with him, but I want to see his posts and be able to respond to them.  WBUR, is there a glitch in the system?  Is Caruso deleting his own comments?  Is he being blocked?

    • Ellen Dibble

      If Caruso is posting about various other ways the plane in Shanksville could have been eaten by wolves or trucked elsewhere — I understand the next town over has a five-ton piece of steel to show off, a new acquisition from one of the 9/11 events — then maybe that is being redirected to the 8/25 thread about alternative readings of that date. Â
      There were something like 3,000 posts there in that thread last I looked, so in the interests of not losing today’s discussion in a continuation of that earlier one, I want to come here to share in remembering how we were and how we’ve changed, how we might have changed differently — on the anniversary.  Having a big discussion of ways in which we might have been lied to seems to belong in the other thread.  

      • http://gregorycamp.wordpress.com/ Greg Camp

        I’d just like to be told that this is what’s going on by whoever is doing it, if that’s what is happening.

      • http://gregorycamp.wordpress.com/ Greg Camp

        Here’s another example:  Above is a lengthy post that starts by saying there’s no going back.  At first, it was from Tnteacher, but now it’s from Callowayrm.  Something’s gang agley in the system.

      • http://www.facebook.com/people/Paolo-Caruso/1778940602 Paolo Caruso

        Ms. Dibble,  its common logic among many that the plane in Shanksville was shot out of the sky by a US fighter plane.  But of course, you must be one of the Dibbles of Philadelphia.  Splendid.  You work well with Greg.  Pity that many of post have been censored today,  seems little Greg couldn’t match my logical discourse and NPR can no longer handle the truth.   Hey whats that I hear,  they’re playing the Marine Hymn on Fresh Air.  Can you imagine, after ten years of perpetual war,  and they still call this show ‘fresh air”.   

        • Brett

          “…its common logic among many that the plane in Shanksville was shot out of the sky by a US fighter plane.”

          Now, see, this is the sort of thing that would be perfect for that other thread! 

        • http://gregorycamp.wordpress.com/ Greg Camp

          Logic is the set of rules that govern reasoning.  You meant to write, “It’s a common claim…”

          • http://www.facebook.com/people/Paolo-Caruso/1778940602 Paolo Caruso

            I meant what I meant:  Logic

          • http://gregorycamp.wordpress.com/ Greg Camp

            How could you mean logic?  Look up the word before you answer.

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/Paolo-Caruso/1778940602 Paolo Caruso

      Yeh Greg Camp,  you are quite the advocate for Truth and Freedom. LOL LOL   when all YOUR inane patriotic posts are NOT blocked.

      Who would have thought  NPR,  corporate media tool ???    As we speak, Terry Gross has the military band playing on Fresh Air !!!!  LOL  Go figure !!!
      Â
      What you are seeing Greg, is fascism at work my friend… And you  are part of it.   Now dont get all warm and fuzzy.. just be happy you have your little job.

      • Brett

        Did you really laugh out loud three times while writing this post?

        • Anonymous

          It’s a sign of a unstable mind.

    • Terry Tree Tree

      I, too object to someone’s comments being dropped!  It happened to me for over a week, with no explaination, and no reason that I can see.   I objected to Gregg being dropped, and I rarely agree with him!  

  • Brett

    I have my own memories of living and working near to the Pentagon at the time. I can remember hearing about the crashes on NPR, which was playing in my office, and the feeling of not being able to get my mind completely around what had transpired. About a half hour after the Pentagon attack, we were evacuated from our building, which was next to the fire station that first responded at the Pentagon, sirens and horns going off to add to the feeling of alarm. I remember going home through Arlington, through a veritable ghost town, with no planes flying to and from National Airport, as would have been the norm, only three recognizance helicopters flying over the area every twenty minutes. 

    Streets were empty in Arlington but the local interstate highway was backed up in a jam, people heading home to various parts in the suburbs. When I arrived home, a large number of tenants were gathered in the lobby of my building, asking questions, exchanging stories, emotions, getting information on potential evacuation of our apartment building…

    Our office was closed for two days. 

    I was about two weeks away from closing on a house I had just bought out of town. My plan was to rent it out and move into another house in Arlington I had owned for a while, moving out of my apartment. I changed my mind (not about the apartment, though) after 9-11 and moved into the house out of town. I sold the house in Arlington about three years later (renting it out as I had done before). Moving helped me psychologically with the tragedy I think.

    I think Tom, Jack and On Point put on a pretty good broadcast today. They also showed what I thought was patience and respect for the Truther caller. The discussion in general struck the right tone I thought.   

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_QME6C6XTBAYFEJP2GYDH3VQEMU Beat

    I don’t need to remember 9/11 because my birthday will never be forgotten.

  • Callowayrm

    Although there is no going back there are lessons to be learned. That government is important and effective government is critical, crucial to our safety and prosperity.
    I think 911 was the fruition of Reagan’s “government is the problem” philosophy that beginning in the 80′s started hollowing out the government, putting political hacks, lobbyists, and fellow movement conservatives, cleared by the Heritage Foundation, (yes the conservative think tank) who directly opposed the mission of bureaus and department in charge of them. The result being competent career bureaucrats with a lifetime of institutional memory trying to give advice, being ignored and marginalized and ultimately pushed out.Â
    The next step was the outsourcing of vital government functions to political donors with government contract largess that then came back as campaign donations.  Which is why since the 80′s, 7 of the ten  richest counties in the country have grown up around D.C. The corporate buy out has been largely successful. The mantra being private industry is much more efficient and effective than government, especially when you don’t keep track of the disappearing billions. Witness the privatization of the military, intelligence, homeland defense industry: 1.5 trillion annual. We think, so much HAS to be classified, it is hard to tell
    Then we have the revolving door of lobbyists and  political soldiers, to department or agency heads to industries that they used to regulate, no quid pro quo here. To view a partial list go to sourcewatch.org. Congress used to keep track of this but a Republican led bill stopped that.
    And it continues: Pres. Obama puts a freeze on government worker salaries, people who only make a fraction of what their industry counterparts make and if they speak up against some industry desired
    handout, there goes your post government career opportunity. See the last time a General spoke out against a weapons system.
    Now that we’ve privatized our homeland defense and military what’s part of the public domain will industry seek to make more efficient next? Here’s a clue if it is “public,” or supported by tax dollars, look for it to be under attack to be “privatized” to make it more “effiecient,” like our healthcare.
    The point is this: if people who don’t believe in government are in charge of government, it becomes self fullfilling. This was evident in the Republican led house and their new found religion as debt and deficit hawks, after running up the largest debt in history and crashing the economy, “don’t raise the debt ceiling, it doesn’t matter, life will go on.”  Richard Clarke running around with his hair on fire, FBI field office reports Saudis taking aircraft flying lessons, buying one way tickets…the list goes on.  It’s easy for people in power to ignore the warnings and calls for action, but that ignorance has the power to bring the world, as  we know it, crashing down around us.

  • Fredericc

    The way I see it if you suspend Occam’s razor and believe the conspiracy theorists, or don’t, the principles that make the republic strong and guard against intrigue, treachery, &c is accountability, education and love of country.

    • Terry Tree Tree

      EXCELLENT POINT!

  • Rylan Brenner

    ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
    by Rylan Brenner
    Â
    we acknowledge this attack on our people
    we acknowledge this attack on our country
    we acknowledge this attack on our home
    we acknowledge this attack on our freedom
    we acknowledge this violation
    Â
    our hurt
    our fear
    our loss
    our grief
    our pain
    our rage
    our rage
    our rage
    we acknowledge
    Â
    we acknowledge our people
     we acknowledge the victims
    we acknowledge our land of many voices
    we acknowledge our freedom
    we acknowledge our loss
    we acknowledge our heroes
    we acknowledge our dignity
    we acknowledge our cry
    Â
    we need to understand
    we need to understand
    we need to understand
    Â
    Â
    we acknowledge the many voices
    we acknowledge the need for tolerance
    we acknowledge the cry for justice
    we acknowledge the cry for vengeance
    we acknowledge the need for wisdom
    Â
    the voices of our country rising
    life bearing death bearing life
    heart bearing heart
    the blood song of this nation rises
    Â
    rises up to heal our suffering
    pulsing in the veins of history
    rises up in many cries
    Â
    we acknowledge cries for understanding
    we acknowledge
    we acknowledge cries for justice
    we acknowledge
    we acknowledge cries for patience
    we acknowledge
    we acknowledge cries for freedom
    we acknowledge
    we acknowledge cries of war
    we acknowledge
    we acknowledge cries for peace
    we acknowledge
    Â
    we acknowledge
    we acknowledge
    we acknowledge   Â
      

    • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_QME6C6XTBAYFEJP2GYDH3VQEMU Beat

      An acknowledgement of pain and sorrow.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_QME6C6XTBAYFEJP2GYDH3VQEMU Beat

    In the morning of September 11th, 2001. I woke up depressed, felt uneasy about the world but not myself. I never felt anything like it before, I never felt so empty and nervous at the same time. I said to myself “It’s my birthday I wonder what will happen to the world” that question was answered 2 hours later by 4 planes. When Howard Stern broadcast on radio that there was a plane crashed on the World Trade Center – His show suddenly involved in news broadcasting. I knew it was Osama Bin Laden who did an evil act. He was unsuccessful in 1993 but for the second time he succeeded.

    • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_QME6C6XTBAYFEJP2GYDH3VQEMU Beat

      I feel like want to go back to my mother’s womb and ask god to make my birth on a different day and month.

      • Terry Tree Tree

        Check out history, and see what GOOD things happened on 11 Sept. !  Look at all the herioc stories of that day!
             Please don’t let this event totally ruin your birthday, for the rest of your life!   The same goes for those born on 7 Dec.

  • Fredericc

    Until there is a technical fix like perfect information awareness that would theoretically allow us to eradicate terrorists and keep their numbers near zero, and as long as there is a niche for them to exploit, there will always be attacks and risk of attack.

    What does it require to eliminate the conditions that foster terrorism? And is it possible? Utopian? Folly? I don’t think the nation can fairly have that discussion until there is solution to the zero-sum politics/economics that divides the country along ideological lines fed by commercial media.

  • Sgt Chad Wildey USMC

    Let’s also remember how disgustingly long it took for our government to care for our beloved heroes who ignored the face of death to rescue strangers on that morning. Let’s remember it took Jon Stewart to bring them on air (recently) to re-raise awareness that they had been forgotten. If a politician comes to my hometown to ask me for my vote with their hand extended, as if they’re my friend, I will spit on them and scold them for not giving a bullfrog’s fat flying ass about our American heroes or our non millionaire citizens. 

    • Larrypayne

      Your respect for politicians reminds me of Pat Tilman’s father’s reaction when a politician came up to him after the sham congressional hearing concerning his son’s death.

      He said, “Get away from me. Get the hell away from me!”

      • Terry Tree Tree

        Which ones do not deserve that treatment?

    • Steve T

      Agreed. Also know that the first responders are not invited(wanted) to this anniversary. What a shameful sham.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_QME6C6XTBAYFEJP2GYDH3VQEMU Beat

    September is full of history from the Munich Massacre, The 1972 declaring of Martian Law in the Philippines,Carlos the jackal,the 9/11 incident and much more.

    What is it all about in September.

    • JustAskin

      Martian law?  Does that have anything to do with Imelda collecting all those shoes?

    • Anonymous

      Martian law? As in War of The Worlds… You mean Martial law.

  • TnTeacher

    I was in my classroom teaching social studies, another teacher came in and said, “Turn on the TV; a plane has flown into the World Trade Center!” We watched as the second plane struck. The fear from the TV began to spread to my classroom, “Who did it?” “What’s going to happen?” “Are we safe?”  I turned off the TV and told my students if it were an attack, it was like a mosquito attacking an elephant. That we had such a thick hide, our layers of organization would protect us and the damage would be minimal. Little did I suspect what a big, dumb, Texas-sized, goofball of an elephant we were, as we grabbed a Texas sized log and started beating ourselves about the head and shoulders, trying to kill the mosquito. 

  • Tiffany Steel

    I almost feel like the panic before the storm with 9/11 so close. Your work is so wonderful. I too am trying to get to you Tom Ashton and this is the easiest way I have found after two days of searching!

    I am a writer and finished a batch of essays yesterday and put them up on my facebook site  Write To Literary Artist.  If you would look in the notes section of that site and find Essay 1 and read from it, probably something from like paragraph one or two….where I face the nation. This will be my first time turning to the media to get my voice out there. I want to say something for our global 9/11 memorial feeling….and I’ve said it in the writing. Thank you for your work. And if you do get to use my voice through reading a few sentences from me, if possible, let me know. Normally, when I’m painting, I’m glued to NPR for 16 hour days. My last year has been one grand lesson in radio. Hadn’t listened to it in four decades. As our world gets smaller, now NPR is my main way to get a synopsis on what’s going on in the whole world. It’s fabulous 24-7. Tiffany Steel. Writer/Painter 413-539-1694

  • Rylan Brenner

    ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
    by Rylan Brenner
    Â
    we acknowledge this attack on our people
    we acknowledge this attack on our country
    we acknowledge this attack on our home
    we acknowledge this attack on our freedom
    we acknowledge this violation
    Â
    our hurt
    our fear
    our loss
    our grief
    our pain
    our rage
    our rage
    our rage
    we acknowledge
    Â
    we acknowledge our people
     we acknowledge the victims
    we acknowledge our land of many voices
    we acknowledge our freedom
    we acknowledge our loss
    we acknowledge our heroes
    we acknowledge our dignity
    we acknowledge our cry
    Â
    we need to understand
    we need to understand
    we need to understand
    Â
    Â
    we acknowledge the many voices
    we acknowledge the need for tolerance
    we acknowledge the cry for justice
    we acknowledge the cry for vengeance
    we acknowledge the need for wisdom
    Â
    the voices of our country rising
    life bearing death bearing life
    heart bearing heart
    the blood song of this nation rises
    Â
    rises up to heal our suffering
    pulsing in the veins of history
    rises up in many cries
    Â
    we acknowledge cries for understanding
    we acknowledge
    we acknowledge cries for justice
    we acknowledge
    we acknowledge cries for patience
    we acknowledge
    we acknowledge cries for freedom
    we acknowledge
    we acknowledge cries of war
    we acknowledge
    we acknowledge cries for peace
    we acknowledge
    Â
    we acknowledge
    we acknowledge
    we acknowledge      

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Paolo-Caruso/1778940602 Paolo Caruso

    To contradict Jack Beatty’s statement that only a  “small minority” believe in a conspiracy.  BBC did a poll on Americans,  15% polled believe there was a govt conspiracy.  And BBC is an establishment mouthpiece. The BBC goes on to state that those that believe in the conspiracy are highly educated. 

    Given that only 8.9 % of Americans have a masters degree,  would imply that the much less educated in America believe the official story and the well educated do not. 

    • Psyop

      …”BBC is an establishment mouthpiece…”

      Then why cite it as credible?  Do you have the link to this BBC poll, so we can can examine the poll question?

      Why the incessant need to link “highly educated” to 9-11 conspiracy kooks. Are you feeling inadequate?

      PS: Newsflash! EVERYBODY with an agenda or cause on the internet state they have multiple degrees in whatever discipline is required to win the an argument…

      90% of everything on the internet is made up grabage by people pushing their version of the truth.

      • http://www.facebook.com/people/Paolo-Caruso/1778940602 Paolo Caruso

        The poll was reported in an NBC news report on the truth conspiracy movie festival on the west coast.  http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/politics/Bay-Area-to-Host-911-Conspiracy-Movie-Festival-129494038.html

        And the fact that BBC is establishment, in fact unabashed outright propagandists,  their poll would be suspect of grossly underestimating the true percentage of those that believe the govt was involved in 9/11.

        FYI   Truthers do not have an agenda… as in grabbing oil, land, selling security equipment to airports,  selling arms and drones and humvees to the military, or protecting Israels expansionist borders.  

        THE ONLY AGENDA IS THE TRUTH !!!!!   I personally feel totally adequate being among those with the intelligence and capacity to see a hoax,  as opposed to being among the ininquisitive

        • Psyop

          YOU: “… BBC did a poll on Americans,  15% polled believe there was a govt conspiracy. …”

          ME: “Do you have the link to this BBC poll, so we can can examine the poll question?”

          YOU: “the poll was reported in an NBC news report on the truth conspiracy movie festival on the west coast”

          Result: No BBC poll link.

          _______________________________________________

          YOU: “..FYI   Truthers do not have an agenda…”
          YOU: 2nd Paragraph: “THE ONLY AGENDA IS THE TRUTH !!!!!”

          Result: Doublespeak.

          _______________________________________________

          “I personally feel totally adequate being among those with the
          intelligence and capacity to see a hoax,  as opposed to being among the
          ininquisitive”

          I assume you mean inquisitive here. This is an excellent description of a paranoid cultists mindset.

          • http://www.facebook.com/people/Paolo-Caruso/1778940602 Paolo Caruso

            Sorry, I pressed reply before I corrected the typo.  I meant non-inquisitive, such as yourself.

            AS for paranoid cultists,  you’ll find them blanketing the condo and townhouses within the beltway and of course in Israel.  All of them are typically on a US government payroll or in Israel’s case… as subsidy or US government contract.

      • http://www.facebook.com/people/Paolo-Caruso/1778940602 Paolo Caruso

        It is already obvious that the truth seekers have high intellect and typically an advanced education. .like architects, engineers and chemists.   Psyops, you best shlepp your psyop nonsense amongst the lemmings.    

        • Psyop

          “It is already obvious that the truth seekers have high intellect and typically an advanced education.”

          Really! Please explain.

      • Terry Tree Tree

        Psyop, are you of one of the 3100 government ‘Security’ contractors? Â
            I have stated my questioning of the ‘Official 9/11 Conspiracy Theory’, and HAVE NOT claimed multiple degrees!  As a Volunteer Fire-Fighter, and Volunteer Rescue Squad member of over 16 years, I see NO need for degrees, to see the VERY questionable story!!

        • Psyop

          Do you believe that men have walked on the Moon?

          • Terry Tree Tree

            Diversion??  Your post-name tells me the answer to my first question!!Â
                 As relevant as your question to me;  Do you believe in magic?
                 Neither bears on 9/11, in a direct way!

  • Susan Lewis

    I have so much anger built up from how Pres Bush handled the situatio nafter 9/11 – I can’t seem to get past it – it has colored my life ever since.  I have lost trust in our government.  I am a veteran who has served two tours in Iraq- I am not angry about serving – I fulfilled my duty.  But, we have lost a great deal of respect around the world.  How do we get it back?

    • Wearesorry

      You should not be angry at Bu$h. You should be angry at voters like us who asked you to risk life and limb on our behalf in two wars and were too cowardly to question falsehoods that  Bu$h and the “republican$” used to justify the wars and who now look the other way as injured veterans return to a life of unemployment and neglect.

      • Steve T

        The voters? Congress hasn’t done one thing either party voted for. Who wants our veterans uncared for? Thoes who have to pay for the damage done in their vote to go to war. We were all supposed to come back unharmed, well, vibrant and unscathed.

    • Anonymous

      We can earn respect by making a national commitment to the inviolability of life and condemn killing of any kind (unless in the most extreme cases and only after extensive national discussion); we can return to a law-based society that ensures access to justice for everyone; we can defend the free press at all times (which means sometimes our own beliefs and opinions will be offended); we can take a strong stand and speak up when other countries commit atrocities against humanity, regardless of how we trade with them, and gladly accept the hardships of doing without some of our cherished comforts because of it; we can demonstrate unequivocally that we are on the side of the underdog; we can invest in educating all our people and build on our personal and national strengths and talents, of which we have many (though rarely acknowledged). Firstly, we must respect each other (rather than exploit each other) and in doing so, our light cannot help but shine like a beacon; for all the world will not be able to resist such national deportment and may possibly be wooed to emulate it themselves. We can become an example of all that is kind in the world, with a thriving economy to boot; an economy founded on a healthy and educated population that has learnt from sheer anguish that there is no national prosperity unless every individual can contribute to it. This will not guarantee against harm but it will put harm in its proper perspective. Harm can never be eradicated. But we inflate its potency when we allow it to motivate our affairs. Mark Twain: “Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest”. It is not too late. But it is almost too late.

  • Barnstormer

    What is the purpose of ratcheting up the media machine around this event? awareness? healing? Continuing the meme of fear more likely.
    Buy more security, stomp personal liberties but use our model as a premise to invade anywhere we think there is a likely terrorist.
    This ‘attack’ was a horrible event for those that lost family and friends. It’s mission was clear – create a groundswell of anger motivated support for invading two countries that have resources. One has oil, the other opium. We also built a military presence that surrounds our next target- Iran and gives us quick access to Russia’s soft underberlly and and China’s west.
    Who cannot be certain of all the reasons this attack was allowed to take place. The Neocon agenda was out there for all to see. It was executed as written when the White House was won.
    The commission that was set up to answer these questions, originally blocked by the presiding administration, was denied access to documents, videos, tapes and personnel by gag order. A lot of effort to cover up if it was just incompetence, no?
    This was definitely a conspiracy, but it wasn’t just the terrorists that conspired to act and play their part as patsy’s. Who funded them and decided to leave them alone for the years they spent here in the US under the watchful eye of the FBI? Who decided and ordered NORAD to stand down until after these planes completed their missions? Were there others in this group that planted the explosives that weakened the supporting columns of the towers? Why would the FBI not release videos from security cameras at the Pentagon and confiscate others from private parties? Did they screw up and didn’t want anyone to get fired over this? Possibly, but I doubt it, those orders came from the White House.  They were aided by others who had prior knowledge of the plan, it is not hard to find these facts.

    Shed tears for those lost and those who have been hurt by this. They and their families are the innocent victims of this tragic event.
     But be careful that are you are not blinded by grief or anger to notice that this plan counted on your emotional reactions. A policy unfolded shortly after this and has been in play ever since.

    Review the march of our military across the globe since this attack. Surely this is about more than a couple thousand terrorists in tents and caves? There are too many questions and the subsequent actions two administrations all has not been able to remove the fish smell about it.

  • Ecantarow

    Most Americans are still clueless as to why on earth anyone would hate us and the rage that has built up since then. Your program did not help dispel the ignorance. Never once during your program did I hear that our invasion of Iraq was based on lies; that it was a crime under the UN and the Nuremberg Charters (pre-emptive war, you know, is banned by the rule of international law.) That the US no longer obeys the rule of law will make all Americans more, not less, vulnerable to future, worse 9/11s. Never once did you mention that there WAS another course to follow against the criminals who drove their planes into the Twin Towers: international police action through Interpol, international trials, and just punishment. Instead, we now are flying drones over Yemen, Libya, Pakistan, which Professor Chomsky has called “the most dangerous country in the world” (popular rage there could topple the US puppet government; nuclear material could then fall into jihadi hands, and then just use your imagination.) A million people have been killed in Iraq: do Americans know? No. More people are killed every day in Afghanistan and Pakistan but American self-regard and insularity, buttressed by liberal fears of the extreme right, don’t care to know. Hence, we are on a downward course. Accepting only calls that seemed to reflect the very tragic experiences of ONLY Americans, and with no supporting commentary or questions, your program did your listeners a great disservice.

  • Ecantarow

    All commenters AND the producers of this beyond-reverential, genuflecting show: for Robert Fisk’s opinion, see http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/09/03-5 

  • Joerg Jaeger

    Honestly, i think the terrorist won. We gave up on our freedom to enjoy our life, to travel where we want. To have a free society that welcome anyone from anywhere.
    We gave up in the name of anti terror on so much freedom that we became a nation that is fine with all the surveillance, to be stripped naked at the airport, to be wiretapped.
    We declared war out of fear and anger with no real facts that supported it. The results are so sad that it is hard to explain what a victory looks like. There are more people killed in the 2 wars than people lost their life’s in 9/11. Thats the real tragic. Now the nation went broke because of these wars with everything thats connecting it.

  • Ellen Dibble

    I heard that the 9/11 terrorists were originally tasked for a suicide mission to Chechnye.  It wasn’t about hating Americans, per se.  (I cite a rebroadcast last night from Charlie Rose, 8/11/11, with an author of the 9/11 report.) The kind of organization they were in sounds like a cult, where you can be directed like a chess piece to do this or that, with every bit of your personality and emotional devotion/rage enlisted in the service of the hierarchy.  So — it doesn’t make sense to me that someone would become someone else’s chess piece because of 40 virgins waiting in heaven or even just for a positive sense of self during a few months of preparation.  But apparently it makes sense to some.  The outsize success of this particular mission may have blown back, however, in that the Arab world has become more free, more viewing itself as individuals with individual responsibility, and the Muslim world has had more impetus to focus on what it means to be a religion of peace. 

  • Joerg Jaeger

    @744609dc360e162fe29456be864e005c:disqus Paolo Caruso People like to believe what they can not understand and to explain the unexplainable.
    If you seen that airplane hit the tower, one needs to imagine the power that hit at the point of impact and the fuel that was unleashed.
    But reason is not what people believe if they are committed to a fixed narrow view.
    People here have a strange affinity against government people. Don’t they remember that they are they brothers, sisters, husbands, fathers, mothers, neighbors?

    • Terry Tree Tree

      How many of your mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, husbands, and neighbors, are top government officials?  Most of us can count on no hands, how many!Â
           You believe that it is coincidence that there was a millitary exercise of EXACTLY THAT SCENARIO, that was being run on the anniversary of the earlier twin tower attack??  You believe that it is reasonable for one in charge of the U.S. millitary, when told that the country is under attack, to take over fifteen minutes to excuse himself to take care of that matter?
          You believe that ALL elevators of BOTH buildings were coincidentally open on just the floor that the plane hit?
          You believe in the Septillion coincidences that happened at just the right time?
          You never heard of The Tuskeegee Project?
          You are ignorant of the testing of the effects of Nuclear Weapons on the U.S. millitary?
          ANY and EVERY government will bear watching!

  • Dee

    Here is my moment of silence (see the URL s below ) for the crime those in the American establishment perpetrated against the Ameri-can people on 9/11 and the bloodbath they ignited in Iraq with their lies about WMDs and now the extension of their evil war into Afghan-
    istan with US assassins and killer drones…

    All thanks to the military /corporate complex of the US Defense Establishment Eisenhower spoke about before he left office…But
    as Emmanuel Ortiz &the former US historian ..(se also frontline air-
    ed this week…America’s secret war …)
    Howard Zinn–it all goes back much futher than that….Dee

    A moment of silence by Emmanuel Ortiz…
    http://www.kersplebedeb.com/mystuff/s11/silence.html

    America’s Blinders
    http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0321-20.htm

  • Dee

    Here is the Frontline series aired this week on America’s Top Secret…

    http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/iraq-war-on-terror/topsecretamerica/dana-priest-top-secret-america-is-here-to-stay/

    (This not ought to be the way a democracy respond as I imagine
    it is an insult to the victims of 9/11 and it violates the Bill of Rights ,
    Plus the Magna Carta itself…arresting suspects and locking them up
    in secret prisons and target killing those who are deemed enemies
    of the state –without due process. Shame, Shame, shame…)

  • Gregg
  • Anonymous

    Recently, I read somewhere that President Bush said “I don’t want my life to be controlled by terrolists” when he was criticized by someone for going somewhere for vacation after 9.11 attack. Now, 10 years later, we are still taking off shoes and belt and having X-ray at the airports. Surveillance camaras are everywhere. Who is controlling our life? On the contrary, no matter how much gun violence is there, our gun rights have not changed a bit. Why are the reactions so different?

  • http://www.facebook.com/ihartman2 Ian Hartman

    Am I the only person whose first thought on 9/11 was this Chilean radicals getting revenge for Pinochet?

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