Remembering September 11th 2001. (Revised)

Remembering September 11th  2001.  Is like waking  up from a nightmare , where ever you were that day , the whole nation rattled . I remember I was heading to work tuning in a the local radio & around 7 a.m. , the report came that a "Small plane hit one of the world trade center towers".  Hours later the reality would set in , as news trickled down from the East Coast . News crews later were already showing images on TV of the first towers being hit by the plane . I remember I was with group of people watching it on TV with bad reception .In those days cable TV was not an option at the work place . What unfolded on Tv was a static image of the first tower . Seeing the plane hit the first tower was hard for the mind to register at first glance. It was creepy . Vary otherworldly . The first crash had changed everything; the second changed it again. Anyone who thought the first was an accident now knew better. This was not some awful, isolated episode, not Oklahoma City, not even the first World Trade Center bombing. The Aftermath, we all know what happened . War was coming , it did . There are still a lot of puzzling things about it,(1)>> conspiracy mongering is no small phenomenon. Any Internet search turns up thousands of explanations for the events of September 11. These theories come in a nearly infinite variety, but all reach essentially the same conclusion: The U.S. government, or some shadowy group that controls it, organized the attacks as part of a master plan for global domination. But the truth is more mundane. Strangely enough a few days before September 11th , 2001  things seemed a bit too normal . Never the less it may not have been . (1.2)>>How far the US government "knew" has been the subject of a lot of writing and film making . Micheal Moore's (2)>>Fahrenheit 9/11   did a great job on documenting exactly what led up to the attack and it's aftermath . The film then segues into the September 11 attacks. Moore says Bush was informed of the first plane hitting the World Trade Center on his way to an elementary school. Bush is then shown sitting in a Florida classroom with children. When told that a second plane has hit the World Trade Center and that the nation is "under attack", Bush allows the students to finish their book reading, and Moore notes that he continued reading for nearly seven minutes. Right before the September 11th attacks, some fishy business happened within the stock market and insurance firms. An “extraordinary” amount of put options were placed on United Airlines and American Airlines stocks, the same airlines that were hijacked during the attacks. Many speculate that traders were tipped off about the attacks and profited from the tragedy. The Securities and Exchange Commission launched an insider trading investigation in which Osama bin Laden was a suspect, after receiving information from at least one Wall Street firm. [ You might like to read this CNN chronology here shorturl.at/iEFKP ] . Osama was always the first suspect . What I found a bit curious as to why the Twin Towers were picked . For some reason it may have never been said that hitting the towers was about hitting America . As we know that the WTC Towers were infact the headquarters of the WTO , keep in mind after nearly 20 years it was missed by everyone . Not one single News media investigated it . Mostly because no one thought that bringing down the WTC Towers was just a terrorist act committed by a bunch of Islamic extremists . But no one knew that the real reason for the attack was to bring down the WTO , destroying it would end the biggest "conspiracy" of them all ,  it’s kind of funny that the very people who are concerned often about protecting labor and protecting the environment are opposed to the first steps to create some kind of international authority that might actually do that very thing. And if you look at the records, corporations that operate in less-developed countries often have a much better record of protecting human rights in those countries and protecting the environment in those countries than do the governments of those countries themselves. So in some cases, one power – that is, a corporation – may actually be better than the existing power – the corrupt government – that’s already there. It’s complex, but the issue is what are we really concerned about? Are we concerned, then, about the rights of workers, the environment, and the prospects for citizens in countries that are poor to get access to food, clothing, and other goods at low prices? Destroying it would have cause the Stock Market to crash . Now after 9-11 the market took a dive , nearly crashed as traders began selling . It nearly suceeded. Nearly seven years after 2001 by 2008 the market did not recover till President Obama bailed out the banks , keeping them form collapsing because of  bad loans to home buyers . So the whole September 11th , 2001 attack was probably just a lot more than just a terrorist act on our American soil .

  Who would our president be now?

If there had been no 9/11 and no retaliatory invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq—we might be living through an Islamist Winter rather than an Arab Spring.Replaying the history game without 9/11 suggests that, ironically, the real impact of the attacks was not on Americans but on the homelands of the attackers themselves Someone else would have won in 2008, and everyone in 2008 wouldn't have been fighting to distance themselves from being compared with Bush.  Would Obama have rallied all the voters sick of the war and swept into office in 2008?  Running against an incumbent president would be difficult, and Obama may not have even run for another four years. President Obama's win may never happned if September 11th was just a normal day in American history . Since it did  As we all witnessed, his actions, along with a complicit democrat congress, caused 8 years of a struggling economy. Granted, he inherited a recession, but he made it worse by raising taxes and pushing through his ObamaCare. How we arrived here with a President Trump is a rather a strange twist of events .   It was completely a reaction to President Obama’s policies that gave rise to President Trumps election . While alleged Russian interference helped Trump as it may theoretically put to the test . If ONLY we have had different time lines in this UNIVERSE . Maybe God could be a bit more comical  & if Trump descended that infamous golden escalator and declared his candidacy for the Democratic nomination? might history have  been changed ? And what about Hillary? What would Hillary Clinton have done with all her spare time from 2009 to 2013? She would not have been McCain’s choice for SecState, so there would have been neither the Benghazi-Benghazi-Benghazi nonsense, nor the e-mail server nonsense the Right Wing Noise Machine spent tens of millions of dollars chasing its tail over. We might of had a more stable world rather the obvious of the last 18 years .

Did Osama bin Laden die in 2005  & not 2011?

We all remember the victory speech that President Obama gave regading the "death" of Osama bin Ladin . The whole thing was strange that the worlds most wanted man with a 25 million dollar bounty was killed by six navy seals , his body dumped out in the middle of the Indian ocean . How many Americans bought into it . Honestly I was always a bit skeptical.  On May 1, 2011, an image purporting to show a dead bin Laden was broadcast on Pakistani television. Though the story was picked up by much of the British press, the American press without question . However it made no sense on how Bin Laden's body was disposed of in the first place .  First place the explination was why his body was dumped out at sea was a bit skiddish . So the news reported that it was done out of "respect for the Muslim religion....' . While reason is bound up within Islamic practice and tradition. And that practice calls for the body of the deceased to be buried within 24 hours, according to a U.S. official. For me,  it sounded more like a cover up . The Pakistani Former Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) Chief Lt. General (retd) Hameed Gul has claimed that al-Qaeda Chief Osama bin Laden died in 2005 and not in the US Navy Seals raid in Abbottabad. What been said about Laden for years is that around 2001 in the wake of the 9-11 attack , Laden was in need of a kidney transplant , was so ill that he was walking on two crutches. Many of these reports of bin Laden's premature death are contradictory. There's the Pakistan Observer piece claiming the al-Qaeda terror chief died in Afghanistan in December 2001 due to a lung complication. Another report cited Taliban sources claiming he had died around the same time due to kidney failure.In October 2002, Israeli intelligence reportedly concluded that bin Laden had died in Afghanistan. In 2005, Senator Harry Reid was told bin Laden died in Pakistan in October, due to the earthquakes. Well he either died in Afghanistan in 2001, or he died years later due to earthquakes. At any case it casts the Obama White House’s account of the operation as a frantic and harried cover-up designed to valorize a “homicide,” as one anonymous commando put it. That probably the wrong person was killed . That prospect could be true , since in Pakistan most men have beards and could be mistaken as Laden so easily . Now if we buy into the Obama White House killing of Osama bin Laden, there arises a moral issue regarding the extradition of wanted international criminals . When the story of bin Laden’s killing was made public, crowds of people gathered at the White House and Ground Zero to celebrate what was understood to be an American victory in the war on terror. In a clip from the  (3)>>UK Press TV show the Agenda, Corbyn is heard complaining that there had been “no attempt whatsoever that I can see to arrest him and put him on trial, to go through that process”. He went on: “This was an assassination attempt, and is yet another tragedy, upon a tragedy, upon a tragedy.The official sources inform us that, if possible, the American Special Forces would have arrested Bin Laden. This, of course, would have been a much more judicially satisfactory option since it will have devolved to Courts, rather than to a commando, the responsibility to judge and punish the culprit. As such, the killing of Bin Laden sees the predominance of the executive over the judicial power. President Obama stated that “justice has been done”, but proper justice is made in the tribunals, not outside them.

Below is a previous post I did about September 11th .

dated 2012 . What if ......

September 11th , what if's .....

Erase 9/11 and the local political scene would be similarly transfigured

If  September 11th never happened,  we
would have a vary different world today .

With September 11th coming up. I wanted to summarize a 'what if scenario' . What our world would have been like if the fatal hijacking terrorist plot never happened . We would still see two twin towers over looking the Manhattan skyline. Better yet there would be obvious scenarios right out out of science fiction , and an alternative timeline. Imagine that the twin towers still dominated the Manhattan skyline. Imagine that the Pentagon’s western facade had remained intact. Imagine that there was no reason to build a memorial in Shanksville, Pa. And imagine that the numbers 9 and 11 meant nothing more than an emergency telephone call.Historians and novelists love constructing “what if” scenarios: What if Hitler had won World War II? What if the Confederacy had prevailed in the Civil War? What if a Chinese sailor, rather than Columbus, had discovered America? First off former President Bush would have come out a much better President than he is viewed now, for sure we would have not have had the economic meltdown that happened in 2008. We would have not had a President Obama either. In this parallel universe, that group of voters might have stayed with the GOP rather than defecting to the Democrats in great numbers in 2008 — and would have wielded more influence in contemporary politics than the tea party movement. And unlike Obama, a Democratic president in a world without 9/11 might have paid less attention to right-leaning independents and governed as more of a progressive.  That means Barack Obama might still be a senator from Illinois. There would have been no history-making first African American president, no birth-certificate controversy — and  ** Obama could still be friends with his longtime pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Why  am I saying this ? Well lets figure the September 11 attacks greatly ruined America's economic system that has sent the deficit through the roof with war costs . American politics would have unfolded in vastly different ways. Assume that, with no 9/11 to use as a pretext to invade Iraq, the election of 2004 would have been a peacetime contest, centered largely on economic issues. It may seem minor compared with today’s  $ economic difficulties, but  after 9/11  followed the crash of the tech bubble, and the subsequent bubble in real estate and stocks took time to inflate. George W. Bush likely would have still won the 2004 election , basing this probability that John Kerry would not have won the nomination to the Democratic Party . California would not have seen the massive debt , and likely we would have avoided recalling it's Governor . Arnold Schwarzenegger still would have been acting . These are just my guesses , but guesses are not accurate . I  just pasting a history of what if . Launching it from a non event 9/11 from happening .The terrorist attacks further accelerated our descent towards becoming a police state. Over the past few years we have seen the establishment of "wars" against this and that, the appointment of "czars" to implement these various "war" efforts, and increase legislation diminishing our civil rights. Due process is vaporizing. "Without the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, there would have been no effort to reorient the U.S. armed forces toward counterinsurgency operations. No 9/11, no COIN. America’s defense planners might have spent the first decade of the 21st century focusing on possible high-tech naval and air combat in Asia, rather than on policing and nation-building in occupied Muslim countries."  Contrasting this we may never know , but 9/11 had serious consequences to the United States over the past 12 years . It leaves us with something to think about this week.

NOTES AND COMMENTS :

(1)>> conspiracy mongering.  Conspiracy theorists claim that action or inaction by U.S. officials with foreknowledge was intended to ensure that the attacks took place successfully. For example, Michael Meacher, former British environment minister and member of Tony Blair's Cabinet said that the United States knowingly failed to prevent the attacks. (see https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2003/sep/06/september11.iraq ) The idea that the 9-11 attack was a "excuse" by our American governmnet to engage in a globalist war . The title of the opertation as "Operation  Enduring Freedom" gave that sense that America would be at war for an extended time .  And what of the U.S. economy in a world in which Mohamed Atta and his fellow terrorists never hijacked airplanes? If the United States had not invaded Afghanistan and Iraq, the national deficit and debt would be considerably lower today. According to a recent report by the Congressional Research Service, between September 2001 and March 2011, Congress appropriated $1.283 trillion for the wars, additional security measures and health care for veterans — with 63 percent of the total related to Iraq and 35 percent to Afghanistan. Economists Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes have estimated that the long-term cost of the wars, including veterans’ care, may exceed $3 trillion  . Adding the fact the Afganistan was the first target , the Taliban and Bin Ladin . Next Iraq and Saddam . By 2011 the Arab Spring was a trigger that the American Neocon's needed . While it looked like the Muslim world was rocked with upheaval that was a by product of the US Invasion & conquest of Iraq , the war spilled over into Libya and Tunisia . The overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi , last of all Syria with Assad .In the past 10 years, the U.S. has directly or indirectly overthrown at least three governments in the Muslim world.  In reality it really smells that something more was going on . Right now the American war machine is exausted , it can't further continue this war [ war on terror] , it has reached its apex . With Russia taking sides with Syria and Assad against the American supported Jihadists seeking the overthrow of  Assad, this war may be closing to an end , perhaps nations need to sit down and stop drawing the "red line".  (1.2)>>How far the US government "knew".  I don't want to put up anything that may not contridict " known facts" { OFFICIAL REPORT}  , but I submit the entire 9-11 Commission Report [ https://www.9-11commission.gov/report/911Report.pdf ] its a long read that was published in book form . (2)>>Fahrenheit 9/11. I finally got to see "Fahrenheit 9/11", and I don't know where to begin describing it. The first adjective that comes to my mind is "horrifying". How honest is Michael Moore with this film? One thing is for certain: he is honest about his intent, which is to help defeat Bush in 2004. The quotes he uses from the Bush administration folks are genuine, as they are provided in the form of video clips that feature the suspects. As usual, Moore injects a lot of his personal emotions... he is a master at this. There is speculation which appears a bit wild at times, particularly in the first half of the film. However, the basic information is there and the questions arise from it.The fact that Michael Moore can make a film this compelling and exposing makes me want to scream at the top of my lungs to question why we let this Bush administration do these things. This movie was not a total shock to me, as I must admit that I already agreed with Moore long before I saw it, but this movie made me so angry and upset at the current state of America. It filled me with such a sense of urgency which has stayed with me for months and months afterward. Everyone in America should sit down and watch this movie if they haven't. You might like Moore's new film with a similar title Fahrenheit 11/9  ↦   In May, Moore teased the documentary on Twitter, sharing a clip of him and Trump appearing together on Roseanne Barr’s 1998 talk show, The Roseanne Show. In the clip, Trump congratulated Moore on Roger & Me, Moore’s film about General Motors C.E.O. Roger Smith. “I hope he never does one on me,” Trump said. And that election is the jumping-off point for “Fahrenheit 11/9,” which begins with a lengthy section on election night and leads into the opening credits with a simple question: “How the f— did this happen?”    (3)>>UK Press TV show the Agenda.     Jeremy Corbyn has come under fire for saying it was a “tragedy” that Osama bin Laden was killed by the US rather than being put on trial.