September 11, 2001: I started my daily commute routine from my apartment at 76th and Lexington in Manhattan’s Upper East Side to my World Trade Center (WTC) Tower 2 office. Getting to the 77th Street/Lexington Avenue subway station around my usual 7:40 a.m., I found that the downtown local was running late, but I was happy to see my three buddies on the train.
What really happened on September 11th—and why do so many 9/11 conspiracy theories still persist 25 years later?
In this episode of The Brief: Insights From The Inside, Shabbos Kestenbaum sits down with Gerald Posner, investigative journalist and author of Why America Slept: The Failure to Prevent 9/11, to revisit the September 11th terrorist attacks on their 25th anniversary.
Posner explains the official account of 9/11, the intelligence failures between the CIA and FBI, the missed warnings before the attack, and why he believes the evidence points to incompetence—not an inside job. He also responds to some of the most common 9/11 conspiracy theories, including “let it happen on purpose,” Donald Rumsfeld’s $2.3 trillion Pentagon statement, the “Dancing Israelis,” Larry Silverstein and “pull it,” World Trade Center 7, “jet fuel can’t melt steel beams,” the Pentagon missile theory, Flight 93, and unanswered questions about Saudi knowledge before the attack.
The Front Pages of Sept. 12, 2001
Explore this collection of archived front pages showing how newsrooms around the world covered the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
September 11, 2001, will forever be remembered as a tragic day. However, in the midst of so much horror and loss, remarkable displays of human connection and support shined through.
All flights en route to the United States that day were diverted. One such flight, Delta Airlines Flight 15, heading from Germany to Atlanta, landed in Gander, Newfoundland. Hundreds of affected travelers were bused to Lewisporte, a tiny bayside town, where residents greeted them with open arms.
In 2002, inspired by the acts of kindness she witnessed, and with the assistance of fellow travelers and others, Shirley Brooks-Jones established the Lewisporte Area Flight 15 Scholarship Fund at The Columbus Foundation in appreciation for the hospitality shown to her and thousands of other stranded passengers. The fund pays grateful dividends in the form of hundreds of scholarships to those from the village and surrounding area.
This remarkable story of kindness and human connection has been written about and covered on television all around the world and even spawned a very popular Broadway play, Come From Away.
Butcher recalls sitting in a meeting about collecting WTC artifacts some months later when a colleague blurted out something about the jumpers having committed suicide.
My boss was always calm and dignified, but at that moment I saw the strain on his face as he tried to maintain his composure.
His anger was palpable.
He put his hands flat on the table in front of him and said, “Never use those words. Never.”
They were pushed out, he explained, by flames and smoke.
In fact, writes Butcher, the death certificates of every person killed at the World Trade Center on 9/11 read "homicide." Homicide, she notes, is defined as “death at the hands of another.” The people who jumped had been fighting for their lives.
"It is a fact that terrorists pushed these people to their deaths, murdering them," concludes Butcher. //
That seems like a fair and small gesture that could be made to put things into perspective on one of the more gruesome, yet important, aspects of 9/11. People were literally pushed to what had to be the most terrifying decision of their lives.
In 2001, Capt. Steve Scheibner was an American Airlines first officer based out of Boston. On September 10 of that year, while serving reserve duty for his airline, he put his name in for the next morning’s American Airlines Flight 11 from Boston's Logan International Airport to LAX.
He was so sure he'd picked up the route that packed his bag and waited for the confirmation of his assignment.
“I waited for the phone call, and the phone never rang, which is not completely unusual,” Scheibner recalled. “It’s not the norm, but it’s not completely out of the question either. In fact, I didn’t even think about it for a while.”
The confirmation never came because, at the last minute, a more senior pilot, Capt. Tom McGuinness, took the flight instead. //
Scheibner has spoken many times in the years since – way before he had a YouTube channel – about what it was like to realize how close he had come to being part of the 9/11 attack.
“Why does God take one and leave another?" he asked. "It’s not because I’m a better person or God wanted to do more with me than he wanted to with Tom. I think in God’s providence, that’s obviously His choice."
In the 25 years since 9/11, Capt. Steve has lived with renewed purpose. “I need to act like I’m living on borrowed time because I am. I can look and see my smoking hole. And it was on national TV,” he said.
“There’s an obligation that comes with that. I’ve got to live my days with a sense of urgency. I have to make sure I get the most out of them. And not the most for me. We live in a world where everybody’s out to kind of get the most for them.”
Captain Steeeve
The Big Apple firefighter’s union is steaming mad over the sudden discovery of 68 boxes of Ground Zero health data following the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks — files they were told never existed.
The recently surfaced boxes contain thousands of pages of information on possible toxins at the Lower Manhattan site that union members said could be used to add new ailments to the list of covered 9/11-related illnesses.
Some 343 FDNY firefighters lost their lives at the World Trade Center site on 9/11 with hundreds more having lost their lives since from health-related maladies.
“They should have used that evidence and those tests to prepare for the long term health care of the people that were down there,” Andrew Ansbro, president of the FDNY United Firefighters Association said at a press conference Monday. “The decision they made was to just hide it. //
The FDNY and advocates for other first-responders have been battling for years to get more data on possible toxins at the Lower Manhattan site, which has killed about 400 people since the attacks.
Out of the darkness…
A stunning symbolic display of light dazzled visitors at World Trade Center’s Oculus Thursday — an annual moment of remembrance that occurs every Sept. 11 at exactly 10:28 a.m.
Known as the “Way of Light,” the sun’s golden rays precisely align with the building’s retractable skylight to form a dappled path of light on the floor along the axis of the structure that appears to be two towers standing slide by side.
John Kozubik - john@kozubik.com - http://www.kozubik.com
On the morning of September 11, I was awakened by my alarm clock telling me of an airplane flying into one of the towers of the world trade center. Although I had been to New York City many times, I had never visited those twin towers, but I had an idea of what they looked like. I imagined the scene of a private plane - some propellor driven machine whose pilot had suffered a heart attack. Perhaps a publicity stunt gone horribly wrong.
I thought to myself what a mess it would be, and pondered the nightmare of looking up from the sidewalk and seeing fallen wreckage falling onto the New York City streets.
As I finished dressing I heard the words "commercial jet liner". Then the crash of the second plane into the other tower was reported. I ate a small breakfast as the president addressed the nation from a public school he was speaking at. I had to get to work.
Joe Biden's Defense Department approved a plea deal Wednesday for three of the conspirators behind the attacks of September 11, 2001. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, and Walid Bin Attash and Mustafa al-Hawsawi will enter pleas before the military commission at Guantanamo Bay next week. //
The Pentagon announcement Wednesday didn’t include details, but a person familiar with the deal said that it involved a life sentence in exchange for a guilty plea. Prosecutors had been seeking the death penalty, but the torture of the defendants while in Central Intelligence Agency custody had clouded proceedings for years. //
President Biden learned of the plea bargain Wednesday, a National Security Council spokesman said.
“The president and the White House played no role in this process. The president has directed his team to consult as appropriate with officials and lawyers at the Department of Defense on this matter,” the spokesman said. //
The only reason we are going through this is because of a direct usurpation of congressional power by a crazed Anthony Kennedy and four fellow travelers. The Military Commissions Act of 2006 specifically placed review of the act outside the purview of the Supreme Court as allowed by Article III, Section 2, Clause 2 of the US Constitution: "with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make." The actions of the Supreme Court in Boumediene v. Bush should have resulted in Bush telling Kennedy to take a long walk on a short pier, and impeachment proceedings should have been brought against every federal judge who agreed to touch the case. But, alas, that would have required courage.
So, the final curtain is coming down on 9/11 and the Global War on Terror. Thanks to the Defense Department's total lack of transparency, it looks like that curtain will go down with as much controversy as when it came up.
all the tags from https://b.plas.ml
1st-amendment 2nd-amendment 4th-amendment 5th-amendment 9/11 a8 abortion acl adhd afghanistan africa a/i air-conditioning amateur-radio amazon america american android animals anti-americanism antifa anti-semitism antiv antivirus aoip apollo apple appliances archaeology architecture archive art astronomy audio automation avatar aviation backup bash batteries belleville bible biden bill-of-rights biology bookmarks books borg bush business calibre camping capitalism cellphone censorship chemistry children china christianity church cia clinton cloud coldwar communication communist composed computers congress conservatives constitution construction cooking copyleft copyright corruption cosmology counseling creation crime cron crypto culture culture-of-death cummins data database ddt dd-wrt defense democrats depression desantis development diagrams diamonds disinformation diy dns documentation dokuwiki domains dprk drm drm-tpm drugs dvd dysautonomia earth ebay ebola ebook economics education efficiency electricity electronics elements elwa email energy engineering english environment environmentalism epa ethernet ethics europe euthanasia evolution faa facebook family fbi fcc feminism finance firewall flightsim flowers fonts français france fraud freebsd free-speech fun games gardening genealogy generation generators geography geology gifts git global-warming google gop government gpl gps graphics green-energy grounding hdd-test healthcare help history hollywood homeschool hormones hosting houses hp html humor hunting hvac hymns hyper-v imap immigration india infosec infotech insects instruments interesting internet investing ip-addressing iran iraq irs islam israel itec j6 journalism jumpcloud justice kindle kodi language ldap leadership leftist leftists legal lego lgbt liberia liberty linguistics linux literature locks make malaria malware management maps markdown marriage mars math media medical meshcentral metatek metric microbit microsoft mikrotik military minecraft minidisc missions moon morality mothers motorola movies mp3 museum music mythtv names nasa nature navigation navy network news nextcloud ntp nuclear obama ocean omega opensource organizing ortlip osmc oxygen paint palemoon paper parents passwords patents patriotism pdf petroleum pets pews photography photo-mgmt physics piano picasa plesk podcast poetry police politics pollution pornography pots prayer pregnancy presentations press printers privacy programming progressive progressives prolife psychology purchasing python quotes rabbits rabies racism radiation radio railroad reagan recipes recording recycling reference regulations religion renewables republicans resume riots rockets r-pi russia russiagate safety samba satellites sbe science sci-fi scotus secularism security servers shipping ships shooting shortwave signal sjw slavery sleep snakes socialism social-media software solar space spacex spam spf spideroak sports ssh statistics steampowered streaming supplement surveillance sync tarsnap taxes tck tds technology telephones television terrorism tesla theology thorium thumbnail thunderbird time tls tools toyota trains transformers travel trump tsa twitter typography ukraine unions united.nations unix ups usa vaccinations vangelis vehicles veracrypt video virtualbox virus vitamin vivaldi vlc voting vpn w3w war water weather web whatsapp who wifi wikipedia windows wordpress wuflu ww2 xigmanas xkcd youtube zfs