September 11

[Punk Rooster]

Surprised there was no thread in remembrance of the lives lost at the hands of the US Government on this day, 8 years ago?

[A Mum]

I did think about it PR.

Such a major event, so many lives lost.
I was going to also ask do people remember what they were doing when they saw/heard about it....
did they see it 'as it happened' or learnt about it when they woke up the next day??

For me:

My then 5 year old son came into the bedroom and said "Mum there's something wrong with the TV"
"What do you mean?"
"The same thing is on every channel"
I lay in bed for a second thinking - what has he done to the TV
And then it sort of hit me - or is it something more serious, so I jumped out of bed.

And yes to see that 'something major' had happened,
I couldn't take it all in, so I rang my mum who it turns out had seen it 'unfold' on TV and she explained to me what was going on.

I rang my husband who was already at work to ask him if he'd heard and he said, yeah a plane has hit a building in NY.
I said you haven't seen anything until you see it on TV

I still remember sitting there with tears in my eyes watching those people jump out of buildings.
Just horrific, horiffic stuff

[Punk Rooster]

yes, this was truly one of the most barbaric acts of our time- how could the American Government do this to it's own citizens?
The end justifies the means I guess- look at all the new wonderful laws we have in place world-wide, for our own safety of course

[CK]

Remember the morning like it was yesterday....alarm went off at 5.45am and ABC Radio were taking live feeds from overseas. Usually woke up to "The Sandman" at that hour, and honestly thought for a minute it had been replaced by some "War of The Worlds" send-up. After a minute or so, it sounded more than that so went out to the TV and was stunned by what was unfolding.

When finally went to work in the CBD, the walk in that day was eerie. Everyone walking nearly silent and when a plane went overhead, to a man, everyone looked up...and wondered....

IIRC, three different copies of The Advertiser that day, each one with more information....

[Psyber]

http://au.news.yahoo.com/a/-/world/6024 ... y-of-9-11/

I assume Punky is stirring, and doesn't really believe that myth about the US government doing it to their own citizens...
I'm not usually pro-US, but even I don't believe they'd do that.

I woke in the morning and turned on the TV to the news.
I spent the next few days expecting them to nuke someone in retaliation and was relieved they didn't.

[Mic]

There's many incidents in World history worse than 9/11 that barely ever get a mention.

[JK]

Like CK, I remember it as if it was only yesterday ... I was staying at my folks place and the only one up watching the box when it came on - I went and woke them up and won't ever forget the look on their faces.

Yes history is littered with atrocities Mic, and you're more than welcome to re-visit them in discussion, but as September 11 was during my time and media coverage was greater than those in the past, it's something I'll always remember.

[Punk Rooster]

There's many incidents in World history worse than 9/11 that barely ever get a mention.

yes, but this was arguably the most publicised- due to technology.

[mighty_tiger_79]

was having a phone conversation when i saw it come on the tv, and then consumed the tv for the next 72 or so hours non stop

[dedja]

I pretty much watched it on the box from the start ... didn't sleep that night.

Was one of the most confusing and surreal nights you could imagine.

At the time, I worked for EDS on North Terrace, and remember vividly looking out of my level 9 vantage point north towards the Hyatt as 747s would duck behind that building as they approached Adelaide Airport, and thinking what would happen if one of those planes hit the building. It wasn't a nice thought.

Also, working for an American multi-national company, we had the added issue of EDS going into shutdown mode in the US and beyond to safeguard (somehow?) against the events.

Then the other thought came to mind ... I'm on the 9th floor of a 10 storey building with a big American company logo on top just a stones throw away from an Adelaide Airport landing approach zone.

And you have to love the American media. Sometime that night they showed vision of missile attacks in Kabul, claiming that Uncle Sam's goodies were already onto the baddies in Afghanistan. Then they realised that that was just a normal night in downtown Kabul and had nothing to do with the events in New York.

[Barto]

http://au.news.yahoo.com/a/-/world/6024470/tears-resolve-mark-8th-anniversary-of-9-11/

I assume Punky is stirring, and doesn't really believe that myth about the US government doing it to their own citizens...
I'm not usually pro-US, but even I don't believe they'd do that.

I woke in the morning and turned on the TV to the news.
I spent the next few days expecting them to nuke someone in retaliation and was relieved they didn't.

Agree, I dont think they did it to themselves, however it's beyond doubt that people in the government agencies knew about it before the event. Whether they let it go ahead to justify their upcoming war or it just slipped by through incompetence, that is unknown.

[Psyber]

Agree, I don't think they did it to themselves, however it's beyond doubt that people in the government agencies knew about it before the event. Whether they let it go ahead to justify their upcoming war or it just slipped by through incompetence, that is unknown.

I suspect they did have some information that the idea was abroad, but somewhere along the communications channels someone didn't believe it could be done or that anyone would dare.
So, it didn't get taken it seriously enough by the security hierarchy.

I learned something interesting about security in my recent trip to and from South Africa.
My Titanium watch and band didn't trigger the beepers at the airports, and Titanium will hold a sharp edge..
So, a Titanium blade should not be hard to smuggle on to an aircraft...

Oh, do I hear a noise at the door - is that you ASIO?

[Magpiespower]

Was watching 'Talking Footy' when they cut to the coverage.

About 15-20 minutes later the second plane hit the Twin Towers.

IIRC, the news anchors went silent as it approached.

Could hardly believe it...

[mal]

911 backwards is a Port Power nightmare....

[Sam_goUUUdogs]

The South Park theory isn't a bad one

[spell_check]

I was waiting for Sports Tonight to see how many weeks Matthew Lloyd would get for his "Grandmas' kiss" headbutt on Darren Gaspar(?). Then after an adbreak during the late news, Channel 10 cut to that.

[Mr66]

There's many incidents in World history worse than 9/11 that barely ever get a mention.

yes, but this was arguably the most publicised- due to technology.

The most watched event in human history.

[Leaping Lindner]

And lest we forget September 11 1973 - the day democracy died in Chile.

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSA ... aebb8i.htm

[rod_rooster]

Was watching 'Talking Footy' when they cut to the coverage.

About 15-20 minutes later the second plane hit the Twin Towers.

IIRC, the news anchors went silent as it approached.

Could hardly believe it...

Was watching that as well. Nick Holland was being interviewed and when they cut away from the show i was p1ssed off until i realised why. One of the most surreal things i have seen watching the second plane strike live. I knew it was real but i just couldn't quite beleive it. I had some mates ring me from a pub to make sure i was watching.

[Leaping Lindner]

http://au.news.yahoo.com/a/-/world/6024470/tears-resolve-mark-8th-anniversary-of-9-11/

I assume Punky is stirring, and doesn't really believe that myth about the US government doing it to their own citizens...
I'm not usually pro-US, but even I don't believe they'd do that.

I woke in the morning and turned on the TV to the news.
I spent the next few days expecting them to nuke someone in retaliation and was relieved they didn't.

Agree, I dont think they did it to themselves, however it's beyond doubt that people in the government agencies knew about it before the event. Whether they let it go ahead to justify their upcoming war or it just slipped by through incompetence, that is unknown.

This is a paraphrased article from Vanity Fair a few years back. Make of this what you will.....

In a squat, red-brick building next to Khartoum's presidential palace, the agents who serve the Mukhabarat, Sudan's intelligence division, keep their secrets in pale manila files. "Those guys know what they're doing," says a retired long-time C.I.A. Africa specialist. "They tend to be thorough. Their stuff is pretty reliable." And sometimes very important. Sudan's Mukhabarat spent the early to mid-1990s amassing copious intelligence on Osama bin Laden and his leading cohorts at the heart of the al-Qaeda terrorist network-when they were still little known, and their activities were relatively limited. Some of the files at Mukhabarat headquarters identify individuals who played central roles in the suicide bombings of the U.S. Embassies in Tanzania and Kenya in August 1998; others chart the backgrounds and movements of al-Qaeda operatives who are said to be linked directly to the atrocities of September 11.
In the wake of those attacks, President Bush and the F.B.I. issued a list of the world's 22 most wanted terrorists. Sudan has kept files on many of them for years.

From the autumn of 1996 until just weeks before the 2001 attacks, the Sudanese government made numerous efforts to share this information with the United States all of which were rebuffed. On several occasions, senior agents at the F.B.I. wished to accept these offers, but were apparently overruled by President Clinton's secretary of state, Madeleine Albright, and her assistant secretary for Africa, Susan Rice,
both of whom would not comment for this story after repeated requests for interviews. Vanity Fair has obtained letters and secret memorandums that document these approaches. They were made directly to the State Department and the F.B.I., and also via a series of well-connected U.S. citizens who tried to warn America that the Sudanese offers were serious and significant.

By definition, September 11 was an intelligence failure. As the C.I.A. man puts It, We didn't know it was going to happen." Some of the reasons for that failure were structural, systemic: the shortage of Arabic-speaking agents, the inability of C.I.A. officers to go underground in Afghanistan.