Looking back

The lesson we should take away from this whole 911 experience is this: Violence more violence. It never pays to support any form of violent activities or organization.

Another poster here mentioned that roughly 12% of those who perished in 911 were Irish. Well, a few years before 2001, I heard Senator Alphonse D'Amato say that a sizable number of Irish- Americans supported the IRA, either materially or in other forms. I am not exactly sure what he meant, but definitely, through their lack of condemnations of the IRA's atrocious acts, and epecially the silence from those who work in American media, unwittingly may have encouraged the IRA.

The moot question is whether Cheney ever took control of NORAD after 911?!! There is a very easy way to put all doubt to rest - either one of Bush,Cheney,Rumsfeld could taken public lie detector test - one question only. ''Did you have foreknowledge of 911''. Simple.

Foreign Secretary William Hague will accuse Iran of "breathtaking hypocrisy" for supporting revolutions in the Arab world while crushing domestic dissent in a speech Tuesday, The Times said. Hague would condemn Tehran for "suppressing protest at home while claiming to support revolutions elsewhere in the region -- except Syria" in a speech to a seminar organised by the newspaper. Hague’s speech would turn the focus on Iran, which has been overshadowed in news coverage by the uprisings in Arab states, the paper reported."The lessons of the Arab revolutions hold true for Iran just as they apply to repressive governments across the world," he will say, the paper reported."Demands for respect for rights, open government, action against corruption and genuine political participation have and will spread by themselves over time... because they are the natural aspirations of all people Everywhere."Simply refusing to address legitimate grievances about human rights or attempting to stamp them out will fail."In 2009, Britain and other Western countries condemned Tehran for violently crushing protests that followed the controversial re-election of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.Iran denounced the Western condemnations as meddling in its internal affairs. Dozens of people were killed in the opposition demonstrations protesting what they said was massive election fraud. Thousands more were arrested, several hundred of whom were handed long prison terms. Hague will argue, that the protests were a "precursor" of the Arab revolutions, the newspaper said. I wonder why we have all guns pointed at Iran on Nuke when we know that many have nuke programs. I thank you Firozali A. Mulla DBA

I watched Mr Donald Rumsfeld talk on Mr Fareed Zakaria's programme GPS, on CNN. I have grave misgivings on one account. The personnel in the Bush administration, still have an attitude, which says that they were justified in every decision they took. I am a man with great faults, and hopefully, I will hate and despair my faults, for as long as I live. It seems Mr Rumsfeld does not see any fault in himself. It does not matter to me, living in India, about Mr Rumsfeld's faults, but his countrymen reviled him, for for what they perceived were his faults.
Iraq was a secular nation, under Saddam Hussein. In one stroke, Mr Bush, and Mr Rumsfeld, made the war on terror, a war on Islam, by attacking Iraq. Today, Iraq is a nation, it seems, populated by barbarians. Under Saddam Hussein, the people of Iraq were not troubled by sectarian violence, and suicide bombers. What caused the barbarianism to manifest in Iraq's population? The American action against Saddam Hussein. Saddam Hussein was wrong in invading Kuwait, and Bush was right in invading Iraq? Because Hussein invoked Allah, he became a Muslim fundamentalist? George Bush invoked the God of Abraham, in his war against 'Muslim Fundamentalism'. Perhaps, just as the American soldier gains strength from invoking God, the Muslim fundamentalist invokes Allah for the same reason. Perhaps, America has got it all wrong, this identification of Muslim Fundamentalism. Is there any other reason, why 9/11 happened?

I can't believe Iran and other state sponsors of terrorism were permitted to continue all this time. Right after the attacks, there was talk of finally getting serious with them.

I don’t usually watch CNN except traveling, but today September 11th, I have just finished my gluing on CNN from 9 PM to 12 midnight (my local time) for 3 hours straight at home on the 10 year anniversary memorial activities in NYC and at US Pentagon.

It was moving experience seeing the composed yet emotional families of 911 victims touching the engraved names of their loved ones even for a foreigner, and my sympathy goes to all these people, especially so when I invite myself to make it in my mind that this service was not just for 911 victims in America (with more than 300 were foreign nationals), but also for those “911 victims” of Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India who where innocent civilians perished either because of the wars or at the hand of terrorists.

What impressed me is the countenance of outpouring American patriotism proudly showed in their near total silence, in the reading victims’ names and in the profound music of Ma You You and Paul Simon. I think that’s an American asset perhaps mightier than the US military might and richer than its capacity for QE2 or 3.

It tells me notwithstanding that one should always stand firm against any hegemony or international injustices of the US government or any government, one should never poke America or any nation unprovoked.

nothing was changed........ but the gud thing is in USA which is increasing continuously, there are certain number of people who believe that weather Israel or USA itself did all the drama.

http://thetopnewz.com/2011/09/11/911-%E2%80%93-ten-years-on/

Any chance that even The Economist can tone down the over the top memorials, the 'the world will never be the same', and all the other overblown rhetoric about this now over hyped event?
Over 42000 people were killed on US roads in 2001, arguably just as great a tragedy, but where is the annual wailing about that?
The WTC destruction is one among far too many events causing large loss of life throughout history, and it needs to be kept in proportion.

No terrorist considers themselves a terrorist. They consider themselves liberators from some form of oppression and feel as strongly for their children as we do. Whether they are members of Al-Qaeda, Contras, communist revolutionaries, or Libyan rebels, their cause is always just in their mind. Until all people accept the ideals of coexistence and respect or all other ideas are destroyed (And God help us if the latter happens) there will always be terrorists out there. The best place start fighting terrorism is in your own mind.

I wish all who read this a good and happy day.

"Yet ten years on, it is striking how far down the ranks of public concerns terrorism has fallen."

And, not just because it has been replaced by economic concerns.

But, rather, due to a lack of similar follow-up attacks on US soil, and relatively few in Europe in recent years.

And, because of the 24/7 news cycle, and the short attention span of the Western world.

And so in short, and relative to the Western world at any rate, I don't think the terrorists won after all, so to speak.

Having said that, however, difficulties in Pakistan and Afghanistan definitely continue to simmer...

Realities:

Indeed so.

We might also spare a thought for Ahmad Shah Massoud.

"As a demonstration of the grossly disproportionate negative externalities of asymmetric warfare - a relatively small number of maniacs can spend, at most, a few million dollars, and, in response their adversaries to spend in a ratio of, perhaps, 100,000:1 - it is a stunning demonstration of effectiveness."

Sun Tzu said that one carriage of the enemy is equal to a hundred of one's own. It looks like he was grossly underestimating the amount...

My sympathies lie with the victims of this horrible attack and the soldiers who were sent to fight wars whose end was long overdue.

Yes, 9/11 changed our world.

Just as an event 70 years ago changed the world and led to the United States becoming the preeminent power in the world.

The question is, "In 2081, will people remember 9/11 the same way we remember Pearl Harbor today?"

Regards

The Economist's leader says that the cost of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq will total $ 4T.

That seems an underestimate.

The cost of the national calamity that was the GW Bush Presidency was far, far greater than merely money, too.

As a demonstration of the grossly disproportionate negative externalities of asymmetric warfare - a relatively small number of maniacs can spend, at most, a few million dollars, and, in response their adversaries to spend in a ratio of, perhaps, 100,000:1 - it is a stunning demonstration of effectiveness.

And that's only the US.

It doesn't include what every other country on earth has had to spend on airline security; or what NATO and other allies have spent on war; and it doesn't begin to include the costs of increased transportation security or the time and lost productivity of people delayed at security and at customs at the airport, or the border.

But even at that rate, it amounts to $13,000 for every many, woman, and child in America.

It amounts to a third of the entire accumulated federal debt.
It amounts to roughly $3.50/gal of gasoline sold in the US since September 11, 2001.

Is there anybody who believes that America's involvement in Saudi Arabia is about anything other than oil?

Is there anybody who believes that America isn't loathed in the Islamic world for its knee-jerk support of Likud?

Ultimately, that is the cost of subsidizing the oil companies.
That is the cost of being ridiculously indulgent with Likud/AIPAC.

And yet -

the oil companies still own one of the two main political parties in the US (the one with the motto "drill baby drill");

they are still being heavily subsidised through the US defense budget;

they still sell a product whose negative externalities (a) are nowhere near being covered by the price at the pump and (b) are, in the end, being subsideis by taxation on all person, whether they own or use automobiles or not; and

the stranglehold of the oil companies on US energy policy is in no danger of being broken.

Ten years.

And America is still nowhere near looking those problems squarely in the face.

9/11 happened because we were standing there with our mouths open and our pants around our ankles. I know someone who worked in security at Logan in the '80s. He was adamant about how bad it was, and furious that no one wanted to hear about it.

He quit.

"Who would have imagined that airliners would be hijacked and turned into suicide weapons against skyscrapers packed full of people?"

Tom Clancy.

But more seriously, I would respectfully disagree with classifying the terrorists as geniuses. There were plenty of points along the way where they could have been foiled. The FBI and CIA had flagged several of the hijackers as suspicious. The instructors at the flight school they trained at found it odd that they were interested in learning how to pilot planes but not land them. We did have some airport security before 9/11, and it was theoretically possible that a security agent might have noticed something. And lastly, as the flight brought down over Pennsylvania demonstrated, the passengers were capable of foiling the attacks.

I would peg the hijackers as evil people who got lucky rather than evil geniuses.

P.S. And obviously, the terrorists who followed in their footsteps (the guy who built a "car bomb" that he left at Times Square that failed to explode, the "shoe bomber" who couldn't quite get his shoes to explode, and the "underwear bomber" who accomplished nothing besides severely injuring his genitals,) don't exactly strike me as geniuses either.

You can't talk about 9/11 without acknowledging the fact that the attack was ingeniously creative, and spectacularly successful. Who would have imagined that airliners would be hijacked and turned into suicide weapons against skyscrapers packed full of people? Even those who could have imagined it would have been hard-pressed to really think it would happen. We could not be prepared for this simply because nobody saw it coming. The masterminds of 9/11 were geniuses; evil geniuses perhaps, but geniuses nonetheless. Until we realize this, we're not going to get over the shell-shock of 9/11.

Mistakes are made by empires as they are by individuals. I would still prefer to live with the self-reflective USA as the predominant force rather than being ruled by China, Russia, or any of the Middle Eastern or Asian theocracies.