Flashback: September 10, 2001

Here’s a few tid­bits to remind every­one what we were all think­ing about on the day before the worst ter­ror­ist attack against the United States.

Michael Jordan’s pend­ing return to pro­fes­sional bas­ket­ball is per­haps the hottest news story in Amer­ica on Sep­tem­ber 10.

XM Radio read­ies 100 chan­nels for debut.

Barry Bonds hits three home­runs, mak­ing it 63 — just seven shy of Mark McGwire.

Michael Jackson’s Fri­day Night per­for­mance at Madi­son Square Gar­den was the buzz.

Israel suf­fers its first sui­cide bomb­ing by an Arab citizen.

Pres­i­dent Bush makes his fourth Florida visit in eight months to dis­cuss literacy.

Iran denies US charges that it is seek­ing to develop a nuclear arse­nal, point­ing out that Iran itself was a vic­tim of weapons of mass destruc­tion dur­ing the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s.

A con­fer­ence of deputy Cab­i­net sec­re­taries agrees on a three-step strat­egy to force the Tal­iban to deport bin Laden. The plan is expected to take up to three years.

The Con­gres­sional Research Ser­vice releases the report ‘Ter­ror­ism: Near East­ern Groups and State Spon­sors.’  The paper describes al-Qaeda as a “global threat” and rates its ter­ror­ist activ­ity level as ‘Extremely High,’ the high­est of any ter­ror­ist group on the list.

John O’Neill enjoys an evening at Elaine’s Restau­rant in New York City.  For­merly the FBI’s lead­ing coun­tert­er­ror­ism expert, O’Neill was recently forced out by bureau­cratic infight­ing, and began his new job as head of secu­rity for the World Trade Cen­ter on August 23.  At Elaine’s he dis­cusses the pos­si­bil­ity of a ter­ror­ist attack: “We’re due. And we’re due for some­thing big. Some things have hap­pened in Afghanistan (evi­dently refer­ring to the al-Qaeda assas­si­na­tion of Mas­soud the day before).  I don’t like the way things are lin­ing up in Afghanistan… I just — I sense a shift, and I think things are going to hap­pen.” When asked when, he says, “I don’t know, but soon.”  Next morn­ing, O’Neill is in the South Tower when it collapses.

Addi­tional  Source:  http://cnparm.home.texas.net/911/Backg/Backg4b.htm

How will we win?

twin towers

twin towersLast night I was going through the numer­ous DVDs that I own.  I came across the CNN Spe­cial DVD, “CNN Trib­ute:  Amer­ica Remem­bers — The Events of Sep­tem­ber 11 and America’s Response”.  So I decided to pop it in and watch it.  As hor­ri­fy­ing as it was on the day it hap­pened, and as hor­ri­fy­ing it was to relive that day by watch­ing the DVD, I think it was impor­tant to do.  And I think every Amer­i­can should watch this over and over just so they can remem­ber what the “zealot ter­ror­ist thugs” did to us — and what we as a Nation vowed to do to them.

The DVD has Pres­i­dent Bush’s “State of the Union” address from Sep­tem­ber 20, 2001 also.  I watched the speech and imme­di­ately received chill­bumps and a lump in my throat.  It was a pow­er­ful speech, and it was from his heart.  It was what every Amer­i­can across the nation was say­ing in their heart.  It was what we wanted our Pres­i­dent to say.  Now where are we as a Nation almost eight years later?  Amer­ica — what have we done to our­selves?  What hap­pened to our vow to “Never For­get”?  What hap­pened to our promise to do what­ever it takes to defeat terrorism? 

Unfor­tu­nately it wasn’t but a few months after that fate­ful day that we as a Nation dis­solved into par­ti­san pol­i­tics, rhetoric, and hatred.  Every Demo­c­rat decided to hate Bush sim­ply because we didn’t fin­ish the War or Ter­ror in four days like we did the Gulf War in 1991.  Nutjobs climbed out of their hid­ing holes to say that 9/11 was an “inside job”.  They began say­ing that (as in the case of one Rosie O’Donnell) that the Twin Tow­ers fell because of a “con­trolled demo­li­tion” by the Bush Administration…that steel couldn’t melt.  Well, I chal­lenge them to go and watch this DVD and see if they could say that after­wards with hon­esty.  (Of course they can’t — they don’t have an hon­est bone in their body).  America — I beg you to remem­ber this:

Amer­i­cans are ask­ing: How will we fight and win this war?

We will direct every resource at our com­mand — every means of diplo­macy, every tool of intel­li­gence, every instru­ment of law enforce­ment, every finan­cial influ­ence, and every nec­es­sary weapon of war — to the dis­rup­tion and defeat of the global ter­ror network.

This war will not be like the war against Iraq a decade ago, with its deci­sive lib­er­a­tion of ter­ri­tory and its swift con­clu­sion. It will not look like the air war above Kosovo two years ago, where no ground troops were used and not a sin­gle Amer­i­can was lost in combat.

Our response involves far more than instant retal­i­a­tion and iso­lated strikes.  Amer­i­cans should not expect one bat­tle, but a lengthy cam­paign, unlike any other we have seen. It may include dra­matic strikes, vis­i­ble on tele­vi­sion, and covert oper­a­tions, secret even in suc­cess. We will starve ter­ror­ists of fund­ing, turn them one against another, drive them from place to place, until there is no refuge or rest. And we will pur­sue nations that pro­vide aid or safe haven to ter­ror­ism. Every nation, in every region, now has a deci­sion to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the ter­ror­ists. From this day for­ward, any nation that con­tin­ues to har­bor or sup­port ter­ror­ism will be regarded by the United States as a hos­tile régime.

Go read the rest of the speech.  Try to remem­ber what it felt like on that day.  Then try and look at our cur­rent Pres­i­dent and Gov­ern­ment and ask your­self:  Is this what Amer­ica needs right now?  Is this the lead­er­ship we deserve?  How can we fight and win this war with this government?

Then I ask you to do this…pray for our Coun­try.  Pray for our troops.  And yes, pray — pray for our cur­rent lead­er­ship.  Pray that they will turn from their cur­rent path and back to a Post-9/11 men­tal­ity and approach to defeat­ing ter­ror­ism and keep­ing Amer­ica safe.  Pray that they will stop spend­ing our money and putting us on a road to social­ism.  Pray that they will real­ize that what we need right now is a fis­cally and socially con­ser­v­a­tive gov­ern­ment, one that has the peo­ple at the heart…Not big­ger gov­ern­ment, but smaller.

In all that lies before us, may God grant us wis­dom, and may He watch over the United States of America.

Terrorist Kills U.S. Soldier, wounds another

I haven’t seen much report­ing on this story on the major news net­works (except for Fox News this morn­ing) — see­ing as the mur­der of a promi­nent abor­tion doc­tor by a nutjob seemed more “juicy”.     Here’s a sum­mary of what happened:

A man with “polit­i­cal and reli­gious motives” killed a sol­dier just out of basic train­ing and wounded another Mon­day in a tar­geted attack on a mil­i­tary recruit­ing cen­ter in Arkansas, police said.

Appar­ently the loon — Adbul­hakim Mujahid Muham­mad — was under inves­ti­ga­tion by the FBI Ter­ror­ism Task Force for trav­el­ing to Yemen and get­ting arrested there for using a Somali pass­port.   He had stud­ied jihad under an Islamic scholar.  He told police that he observed two sol­diers, drove up to the recruit­ing cen­ter in Lit­tle Rock, Arkansas, and opened fire.

Ah, the “Reli­gion of Peace” is at it again.  Muham­mad (not the “Prophet”) will be charged with one count of first-degree mur­der and six­teen counts of com­mit­ting a ter­ror­ist act.

Full Story @ Fox News

9/11 — May We Never Forget

The World Trade Center as it used to be.
The World Trade Center as it used to be.

The World Trade Cen­ter as it used to be.

I think in the past few years, most Amer­i­cans have for­got­ten what hap­pened to this Coun­try and our Coun­try­men on Sep­tem­ber 11, 2001.  I — for one — have not.  I never will.  I’ll never for­get the feel­ing of being told, “A plane just flew into the World Trade Cen­ter!”  At first, I thought they were telling a bad joke…Then I real­ized they were seri­ous.  I imme­di­ately thought, as prob­a­bly most Amer­i­cans did, that it was just an acci­dent.  But when some­one in our office yelled, “Another plane just flew into the Trade Cen­ter!”  I — prob­a­bly like you did — real­ized it was a hor­ri­ble attack on our country.

I tried my best to work, to get my mind off of what happened…You see, I had just started in June at the com­pany I was work­ing for.  I wanted to show every­one that I was a hard worker, that I could do my job with­out being dis­tracted by idle con­ver­sa­tion.  But when some­one told me they had the TV in an adja­cent office on, I ran to it.  I had to see for my own eyes what was happening.

Big mis­take.  About 15 of us stood in that office and watched both of the Twin Tow­ers fall.  It was hor­rific.  I was think­ing, “This is just a bad, bad movie…It’s not real.  It can’t be real…”  But it was…way too real.

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