Fall 2026.

 

 

Fall 2026

The Fall of 2026 is almost here. The year of 2026 is almost completed. For generations, we have seen history change all of the time. We are in the later part of this 2020s decade. A lot of things have changed from technology to culture like the growth of A.I., the increase of the usage of social media, and the increased debates on various political matters. Yet, one thing remains the same which is the truth. Time is ever going fast. I remember 1992, 1996 and the year of 2001 just like yesterday, and now we are less than 4 years before 2030. We have lived through a movement more dangerous and powerful than Reaganism and the Southern Strategy put together. It is the MAGA movement, whose major spokesperson is Donald Trump. MAGA is possibly the biggest deception in human history, because it has infected the minds of religious people, secular people, people of all ages, and even some person of color (like Brandon Tatum, Amber Rose, Nicki Minaj, DJ Akademiks, etc.) have been brainwashed to agree with Trump unconditionally. Trump is supported by far-right people and white nationalists who have perverted interpretations of American history and the belief in the great lie (that true Americans are only made up of white people and everyone else must submit to the agenda of white racism). If Trump was truly honest, why did he try his best to suppress the Epstein files until public outcry forced him to release the Epstein files? Why is he signing laws that benefit the super-rich that only perpetrates the growth of economic inequality in the globe? Why is he glorifying traitors and other folks who harmed lives like Thomas Jefferson, Robert E. Lee, Andrew Jackson, etc. This signifies how MAGA hates America. If they truly love America, they will promote policies and laws to clean our environment, promote diversity, strengthen our voting laws, protect our civil liberties, refuse to whitewash the real history of America in museums plus schools, and expand human rights for all people. We don't need far right authoritarianism and fascism masquerading as "patriotism." We just need true liberty. The unjust Iranian war was truly a turning point. Many MAGA people have left the movement over the Iranian War, because that war was so unjust that the vast majority of Americans didn't agree with it when true, strong diplomacy would have saved lives.

One of the most important news of our time is the trade war between America and Canada. This war started by Trump refusing to go along with a proposed deal with Canada. Since that time, the trade war has only intensified among both nations. Trump announced U.S. tariffs on Canadian cars, trucks, and auto parts. This was imposed last year in overt violation of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) will be doubled from 25 to 50 percent on January 1, 2027. Steel, already tariffed at 50 percent, will be included in the order. This came after Washington imposed 50 percent tariffs on more than $20 billion in other Canadian goods. Trump claims that Canada is ripping off the United States of America for year. Prime Minister of Canada Mark Carney responded to Trump by saying that Canada is at war. On Tuesday, his Liberal government finalized retaliatory tariffs on almost $20 billion in U.S. goods, at rages 15, 25, and 50 percent, matching Washington's dollar for dollar, rate to rate, to be established by September 6. The global overall trade war that Trump has created since returning to the White House in 2025 has harmed our economic system. Trump desires control of the world's markets, monopolize markets and resources, and we witness a violent redivision of the globe. Trump has outright desired to make Canada the 51st state of America. Trump and the MAGA movement believes that U.S. dominance must extent all over the globe. Trump has plans in trying to seize Greenland and the Panama Canal too. He has already promoted the January 2026 invasion of Venezuela and the abduction of its president, Nicholas Madura. Trump has tried to intimidate Mexico and desires to make Cuba a puppet Western state. Now, we have the war in Ukraine, genocide in Gaza, and the war in Iran all at the same time. Zelensky is not perfect, but certain tank movements omit that Russia illegally invaded Ukraine and used war crimes against the Ukrainian people. Trump promoted the new tariffs by invoking Section 338 of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930, which caused protectionist trade blocs that influenced the origin of WWII. Both American and Canadian workers suffer by these tariffs as a tariff is a tax on imports passed on to consumers in a higher price. The tariffs on plywood, cement, dairy, clothing, appliances, etc. will cause more Americans to pay more for housing, groceries, and utility bills. Canadian workers will suffer for issues too. We need the unity of workers globally, regardless of nationality and a sense of purpose to resolve tariff issues progressively. 

On this latter part of 2026, we should have joy, relax, have fun, and have camaraderie with family and friends. Also, we should realize that we should use this time to recognize why we have Labor Day and other blessings in the first place. We have numerous blessings in America because of our ancestors, heroes, and the power of workers, past and present, who sacrificed their lives to make our lives better. There are unsung people in health care, education, construction, tourism, business, legal places, social activism circles, and other endeavors worldwide. We, who are workers, have a powerful work ethic that has transformed society. That is why labor unions were created to help workers have a fair wage, health care benefits, and pensions. Back in the day, there was no Social Security or Medicare, so workers had to fight to make sure that Social Security existed since 1933 and Medicare existed since 1965. Many agents want to promote division based upon ethnicity (as found in the ADOS and FBA movements), sexism, xenophobia, and bigotry in general. This agent activity is not new. We know of the FBI's COINTELPRO program that tried to destroy black liberation groups (like the SCLC, the Black Panther Party, SNCC, etc.) and progressive activism in general. Such programs from the CIA, FBI, NSA, etc. exist today, and these surveillance acts have been documented by Snowden and other whistleblowers for years and decades. We must reject that evil of divisiveness and adhere to the truths of unity, love, morality, integrity, and human dignity. The journey for justice is not yet complete, but we are in favor of being part of that august journey so that justice for all human beings becomes a concrete reality.

 

9/11 (25th Years Later)

 

As we remember the 25th year anniversary of the tragedy of the attacks on September 11th, 2001, we contemplate the legacy of our American nation. I think about 9/11 consistently all of the time. I was alive during that time when I was a Freshman in college, being almost 18 years old. Some of the younger people (like those in Generation Z, Generation Alpha, and Generation Beta) were not born when 9/11 took place, which is very surreal. I remember that day just like yesterday. The 9/11 attacks changed everything in human history, from the growth of the surveillance state to foreign policy matters in general. Just before 9/11 transpired, we were in the early stage of the first term of President George W. Bush. President Bush was a Reagan conservative, and his inauguration on January 20, 2001, was heavily protested by the progressive community. On 9/11, on Tuesday morning, terrorists highjacked multiple aircraft to crash them into the Twin Towers of New York City and the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia. Another group of hijackers tried to fly into the United States Capitol, but heroic people fought them off, and the plane crashed in Stonycreek Township, near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. The terrorists who did these attacks were Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda network. The neo-conservatives (including those of the PNAC membership) inspired Bush and Cheney to invade Afghanistan and later Iraq. A lot of emergency people, including firemen, firewomen, police officers, ambulance workers, volunteers, etc., were real heroes, saving lives in New York City and in the Pentagon too. There are a lot of unsung heroes who made the ultimate sacrifice after saving human lives. The USA Patriot Act (a controversial law) was passed by Congress, and America's police forces have been increasingly militarized. Since the start, I opposed the USA Patriot Act on civil liberty grounds. During the immediate aftermath of 9/11, people had a dazed look on their faces, mosques were unfortunately vandalized, and many Muslims were profiled in a bigoted fashion. Regardless of one's religious or political creed, all people should be treated with dignity and respect. Many of the oligarchy used the 9/11 attacks, unfortunately, to promote the concept of a Western empire to attack sovereign nations to gain their material resources to maintain an imperialistic, colonialist Western hegemony in the globe. The legacy of the September 11 tragedy is that we must always oppose terrorism, defend democracy, and stand up against fascists plus authoritarians who desire to ruin the freedoms that our ancestors sacrificed their lives for.

The History of the Twin Towers

The World Trade has a long history. The original World Trade Center was a complex of seven buildings in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. Built primarily between 1966 and 1975, it was dedicated on April 4, 1973, and was destroyed on September 11, 2001, after two hijacked planes were flown into the towers in a coordinated terrorist attack. The complex included the 110-story-tall Twin Towers, at the time of their completion the tallest buildings in the world, with the original 1 World Trade Center (the North Tower) at 1,368 feet (417 m), and 2 World Trade Center (the South Tower) at 1,362 feet (415.1 m). They were also the tallest twin skyscrapers in the world until 1996, when the Petronas Towers opened in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The other buildings in the complex were the Marriott World Trade Center (3 WTC), 4 WTC, 5 WTC, 6 WTC, and 7 WTC. The complex contained 13,400,000 square feet (1,240,000 m2) of office space and, prior to its completion, was projected to accommodate an estimated 130,000 people. The area of the World Trade Center was near the Hudson River. The Dutch were the first European settlers in Manhattan. Later, the area became New York City's Radio Row, which existed from 1921 to 1966. The neighborhood was a warehouse district in what is now Tribeca and the Financial District. Harry Schneck opened City Radio on Cortlandt Street in 1921, and eventually, the area held several blocks of electronics stores, with Cortlandt Street as its central axis. The used radios, war surplus electronics (e.g., AN/ARC-5 radios), junk, and parts were often piled so high they would spill out onto the street, attracting collectors and scroungers. According to a business writer, it also was the origin of the electronic component distribution business.

The idea of forming the World Trade Center in New York City was first proposed in 1943. The New York State Legislature passed a bill authorizing New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey to start developing plans for the project. They were put on hold in 1949. Plans existed by eminent domain to remove shops in Radio Row bound by Vesey, Church, Liberty, and West Streets by 1961. To help stimulate urban renewal in Lower Manhattan, David Rockefeller suggested that the Port Authority build a World Trade Center there. By 1961, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey was deciding to build the world's first world trade center. They had two choices: the east side of Lower Manhattan, near the South Street Seaport; or the west side, near the Hudson and Manhattan Railroad (H&M) station, Hudson Terminal. Initial plans, made public in 1961, identified a site along the East River for the World Trade Center. As a bi-state agency, the Port Authority required approval for new projects from the governors of both New York and New Jersey. New Jersey Governor Robert B. Meyner objected to New York getting a $335 million project. Toward the end of 1961, negotiations with outgoing New Jersey Governor Meyner reached a stalemate. 

Approval was also needed from New York City Mayor John Lindsay and the New York City Council. Disagreements with the city centered on tax issues, and the New York City Planning Commission wanted the Port Authority to increase its payments in lieu of taxes (PILOT) to the city government. On August 3, 1966, an agreement was reached whereby the Port Authority would make annual PILOTs for the portion of the World Trade Center leased to private tenants. In subsequent years, the payments would rise as the real estate tax rate increased. In May 1967, the New York City Planning Commission approved several changes to the street grid that would allow the Port Authority to begin acquiring land for the complex.

On September 20, 1962, the Port Authority announced the selection of Minoru Yamasaki as lead architect and Emery Roth & Sons as associate architects. Yamasaki devised the plan to incorporate twin towers. His original plan called for the towers to be 80 stories tall, but to meet the Port Authority's requirement for 10,000,000 square feet (930,000 m2) of office space, the buildings would each have to be 110 stories tall. The Port Authority publicly presented a model for the complex on January 18, 1964. The original plans called for two towers rising 1,350 feet (410 m), as well as several six-story buildings surrounding a central plaza (later the Austin J. Tobin Plaza). These buildings were to include office space, restaurants, a hotel, exhibition space, stores, and an information center about world trade. The agency released its final model of the complex in March 1966. Despite public criticism over the height of the 110-story twin towers, Yamasaki & Associates and Emery Roth & Sons made only relatively minor changes to the plans, which were released in May 1966. The revised plans called for the twin towers and four additional low-rise structures to surround the central plaza.

As for the early World Trade Center, Yamasaki's design called for a square plan approximately 208 feet (63 m) in dimension on each side. The buildings were designed with narrow office windows 18 inches (46 cm) wide, which reflected Yamasaki's fear of heights as well as his desire to make building occupants feel secure. His design included building facades clad in aluminum-alloy. The World Trade Center was one of the most striking American implementations of the architectural ethic of Le Corbusier and was the seminal expression of Yamasaki's gothic modernist tendencies. He was also inspired by Islamic architecture, elements of which he incorporated in the building's design, having previously designed Saudi Arabia's Dhahran International Airport with the Saudi Binladin Group ironically. The buildings need elevators. The taller the building, the more elevators are needed to service. That means the buildings need more space consuming elevator banks. Yamasaki and the engineers decided to use a new system with two "sky lobbies"—floors where people could switch from a large-capacity express elevator to a local elevator that goes to each floor in a section. This system, inspired by the local-express train operation used in New York City's subway system, allowed the design to stack local elevators within the same elevator shaft. Located on the 44th and 78th floors of each tower, the sky lobbies enabled the elevators to be used efficiently. This increased the amount of usable space on each floor from 62 to 75 percent by reducing the number of elevator shafts. Altogether, the World Trade Center had 95 express and local elevators.

The structural engineering firm Worthington, Skilling, Helle & Jackson worked to implement Yamasaki's design, developing the framed-tube structural system used in the twin towers. The Port Authority's Engineering Department served as foundation engineers, Joseph R. Loring & Associates as electrical engineers, and Jaros, Baum & Bolles (JB&B) as mechanical engineers. Tishman Realty & Construction Company was the general contractor on the World Trade Center project. Guy F. Tozzoli, director of the World Trade Department at the Port Authority, and Rino M. Monti, the Port Authority's Chief Engineer, oversaw the project. As an interstate agency, the Port Authority was not subject to the local laws and regulations of the City of New York, including building codes. Nonetheless, the World Trade Center's structural engineers ended up following draft versions of New York City's new 1968 building codes. The framed-tube design, introduced in the 1960s by Bangladeshi-American structural engineer Fazlur Rahman Khan, was a new approach that allowed more open floor plans than the traditional design that distributed columns throughout the interior to support building loads. Each of the World Trade Center towers had 236 high-strength, load-bearing perimeter steel columns which acted as Vierendeel trusses. The perimeter columns were spaced closely together to form a strong, rigid wall structure, supporting virtually all lateral loads such as wind loads, and sharing the gravity load with the core columns. The perimeter structure containing 59 columns per side was constructed with extensive use of prefabricated modular pieces, each consisting of three columns, three stories tall, connected by spandrel plates. The spandrel plates were welded to the columns to create the modular pieces off-site at the fabrication shop. Adjacent modules were bolted together with the splices occurring at mid-span of the columns and spandrels. The spandrel plates were located at each floor, transmitting shear stress between columns, allowing them to work together in resisting lateral loads. The joints between modules were staggered vertically so that the column splices between adjacent modules were not on the same floor. 

Below the 7th floor to the foundation, there were fewer, wider-spaced perimeter columns to accommodate doorways. The core of the towers housed the elevator and utility shafts, restrooms, three stairwells, and other support spaces. The core of each tower was a rectangular area 87 by 135 feet (27 by 41 m) and contained 47 steel columns running from the bedrock to the top of the tower. The large, column-free space between the perimeter and core was bridged by prefabricated floor trusses. The floors supported their own weight as well as live loads, providing lateral stability to the exterior walls and distributing wind loads among the exterior walls. The floors consisted of 4-inch (10 cm) thick lightweight concrete slabs laid on a fluted steel deck. A grid of lightweight bridging trusses and main trusses supported the floors. The building had hat trusses and a framed tube design with a steel core and perimeter columns. It has spray on fire resistant material. In March 1965, the Port Authority began acquiring property at the World Trade Center site. Demolition work began on March 21, 1966, to clear thirteen square blocks of low rise buildings in Radio Row for its construction. Groundbreaking for the construction of the World Trade Center took place on August 5, 1966. There was a trench around the area to build the building. The construction work began on the North Tower in August 1968, and construction on the South Tower started by January 1969. 

The topping out ceremony of 1 WTC (North Tower) took place on December 23, 1970, while 2 WTC's ceremony (South Tower) occurred on July 19, 1971. Extensive use of prefabricated components helped to speed up the construction process, and the first tenants moved into the North Tower on December 15, 1970, while it was still under construction, while the South Tower began accepting tenants in January 1972. The complex had 111 tenants with a combined 1,800 employees by late 1971. When the Twin Towers were completed, the total costs to the Port Authority had reached $900 million. The ribbon-cutting ceremony took place on April 4, 1973. In addition to the Twin Towers, the plan for the World Trade Center complex included four other low-rise buildings, which were built in the early 1970s. The 47-story 7 World Trade Center building was added in the 1980s, to the north of the main complex. Altogether, the main World Trade Center complex occupied a 16-acre (65,000 m2) superblock. The World Trade Center complex housed more than 430 companies that were engaged in various commercial activities. The complex hosted 13,400,000 square feet (1,240,000 m2) of office space, which according to a 1970 account was supposed to accommodate 130,000 people. On a typical weekday, an estimated 50,000 people worked in the complex and another 140,000 passed through as visitors.  The Twin Towers had more floors (at 110) than any other building before the completion of the Sears Tower in 1973. This number of floors was not surpassed until the construction of the Burj Khalifa, which opened in 2010. The towers were also the world's tallest twin buildings until 1996, when the Petronas Towers opened. Each tower had a total mass of around 500,000 tons. There was the Austin J. Tobin Plaza in the area too. 

After the destruction of the World Trade Center during 9/11, there was a reconstruction of a new building to prove to the world that terrorism can never cripple human democracy. Over the following years, plans were created for the reconstruction of the World Trade Center. The Lower Manhattan Development Corporation (LMDC), established in November 2001 to oversee the rebuilding process, organized competitions to select a site plan and memorial design. Memory Foundations, designed by Daniel Libeskind, was selected as the master plan; however, substantial changes were made to the design. The first new building at the site was 7 WTC, which opened on May 23, 2006. The memorial section of the National September 11 Memorial & Museum opened on September 11, 2011, and the museum opened on May 21, 2014. 1 WTC opened on November 3, 2014; 4 WTC opened on November 13, 2013; and 3 WTC opened on June 11, 2018. In November 2013, according to an agreement made with Silverstein Properties Inc., the new 2 WTC would not be built to its full height until sufficient space was leased to make the building financially viable. Above-ground construction of 5 WTC was also suspended due to a lack of tenants as well as disputes between the Port Authority and the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation. In mid-2015, Silverstein Properties revealed plans for a redesigned 2 WTC, to be designed by Bjarke Ingels and completed by 2020 with News Corp as anchor tenant. Four years later, with no anchor tenant for 2 WTC, Silverstein expressed his intent to resume work on the tower regardless of whether a tenant had signed. The World Trade Center Transportation Hub opened to the public on March 4, 2016. 2 World Trade Center's full construction was placed on hold in 2012 and resumed in 2026.

The 1993 WTC attack

The 1993 World Trade Center bombing was a prelude to the September 11th attacks. It took place on February 26, 1993, when I was in the fourth grade of elementary school. I remembered the bombing just like yesterday. On that date,  Ramzi Yousef and associates carried out a van bomb terrorist attack below the North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York City. The 1,336-pound (606 kg) urea nitrate–hydrogen gas enhanced device was intended to make the North Tower collapse onto the South Tower, taking down both skyscrapers and killing tens of thousands of people. While it failed to do so, it was successful in killing six people, and caused over a thousand injuries. About 50,000 people were evacuated from the buildings that day. The attack was planned by a group of terrorists including Yousef, Ahmed Ajaj, Mahmud Abouhalima, Mohammed A. Salameh, Eyad Ismoil, Nidal Ayyad, and Abdul Rahman Yasin. In March 1994, four men were convicted of carrying out the bombing: Ajaj, Abouhalima, Ayyad, and Salameh. The charges included conspiracy, explosive destruction of property, and interstate transportation of explosives. In November 1997, two more were convicted: Ramzi Yousef, the organizer behind the bombings, and Eyad Ismoil, who drove the van carrying the bomb. Emad Salem, an FBI informant and a key witness in the trial of Yousef, Abdul Hakim Murad, and Wali Khan Amin Shah, stated that the bomb itself was built under supervision from the FBI. During his time as an FBI informant, Salem recorded hours of telephone conversations with his FBI handlers. In tapes made after the bombing, Salem alleged that an unnamed FBI supervisor declined to move forward on a plan that would have used a "phony powder" to fool the conspirators into believing that they were working with genuine explosives.

Yousef arrived illegally in the United States on September 1, 1992, traveling with Ahmed Ajaj from Pakistan, though both sat apart on the flight and acted as though they were traveling separately. Ajaj tried to enter using a forged Swedish passport, though it had been altered and thus raised suspicions among Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) officials at John F. Kennedy International Airport. When officials put Ajaj through secondary inspection, they discovered bomb-making instructions and other materials in his luggage, and arrested him. The name Abu Barra, an alias of Mohammed Jamal Khalifa, appeared in the manuals. Yousef entered on a false Iraqi passport claiming political asylum, and was given a hearing date. Yousef set up residence in Jersey City, New Jersey, traveled around New York and New Jersey and called Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, a controversial blind Muslim cleric, via cell phone. After being introduced to his co-conspirators by Abdel Rahman at the latter's Al-Farooq Mosque in Brooklyn, Yousef began assembling the 1,500-pound (680 kg) urea nitrate–hydrogen gas enhanced device for delivery to the WTC. He ordered chemicals from his hospital room when he had been injured in a car crash – one of three accidents caused by Salameh in late 1992 and early in 1993.

El Sayyid Nosair, one of the blind sheikh's men, was arrested in 1991 for the murder of Rabbi Meir Kahane. According to prosecutors, "the Red" Mahmud Abouhalima, also convicted in the bombing, told Wadih el Hage to buy the .357 caliber revolver used by Nosair in the Kahane shooting. In the initial court case in NYS Criminal Court, Nosair was acquitted of murder but convicted of gun charges (in a related and follow-up case in Federal Court, he was convicted). Dozens of Arabic bomb-making manuals and documents related to terrorist plots were found in Nosair's New Jersey apartment, with manuals from Army Special Warfare Center at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, secret memos linked to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and 1,440 rounds of ammunition. According to the transcript of his trial, Yousef hoped that his explosion would topple Tower 1 which would fall into Tower 2, killing the occupants of both buildings, which he estimated to be about 250,000 people in revenge for U.S. support for Israel against Palestine. According to journalist Steve Coll, Yousef mailed letters to various New York newspapers just before the attack, in which he claimed he belonged to "Liberation Army, Fifth Battalion." These letters made three demands: an end to all US aid to Israel, an end to US diplomatic relations with Israel, and a pledge by the United States to end interference "with any of the Middle East countries' interior affairs." He stated that the attack on the World Trade Center would be merely the first of such attacks if his demands were not met. Yousef did not make any religious justification for the bombing. When asked about his religious views, he was evasive. The attack took place after noon. Ramzi Youself worked with his Jordanian friend Eyad Ismoil to use a yellow Ford Econoline Ryder van to attack the World Trade Center. They parked on the underground B-2 level. Yousef ignited the 20-foot (6.1 m) fuse, and fled. Twelve minutes later, at 12:18 p.m., the bomb exploded in the underground garage, generating an estimated pressure of 150,000 pounds per square inch (1.0 GPa). The bomb opened a 100-foot-wide (30 m) hole through four sublevels of concrete. The detonation velocity of this bomb was about 15,000 feet per second (10,000 mph; 4.6 km/s) The bomb instantly cut off the World Trade Center's main electrical power line, knocking out the emergency lighting system. The bomb caused smoke to rise to the 93rd floor of both towers, including through the stairwells (which were not pressurized), and smoke went up the damaged elevators in both towers. With thick smoke filling the stairwells, evacuation was difficult for building occupants and led to many smoke inhalation injuries. Hundreds were trapped in elevators in the towers when the power was cut, including a group of 17 kindergartners on their way down from the South Tower observation deck, who were trapped between the 35th and 36th floors for five hours.

Six people were killed: five Port Authority employees, one of whom was pregnant, and a businessman whose car was in the parking garage. Additionally, over 1,000 people were injured, most during the evacuation that followed the blast. A report from the US Fire Administration states that "Among the scores of people who fled to the roofs of the towers, 28 with medical problems were airlifted by New York City police helicopters." It is known that 15 people received traumatic injuries from the blast and 20 complained of cardiac problems. One firefighter was hospitalized, while 87 others, 35 police officers, and an EMS worker were also injured in dealing with the fires and other aftermath.

Also as a result of the loss of power, most of New York City's radio and television stations (except WCBS-TV (channel 2) lost their over-the-air broadcast signal for almost a week, with television stations only being able to broadcast via cable and satellite via a microwave hookup between the stations and three of the New York area's largest cable companies, Cablevision, Comcast, and Time Warner Cable. Telephone service for much of Lower Manhattan was also disrupted. Yousef's plan was that the North Tower would fall onto the South Tower, collapsing them both. The tower did not collapse, but the garage was severely damaged in the explosion. Had the van been parked closer to the WTC's poured concrete foundations, Yousef's plan might have succeeded. Yousef escaped to Pakistan several hours after the bombing. The bomb had 200 to 300 pounds of a plastic explosive called Semtex. According to the FBI, Yousef was assisted by Iraqi bomb maker Abdul Rahman Yasin, who helped assemble the complex 1,310-pound (590 kg) bomb, which was made of a urea nitrate main charge with aluminum, magnesium and ferric oxide particles surrounding the explosive. The charge used nitroglycerine, ammonium nitrate dynamite, smokeless powder and fuse as booster explosives. Three tanks of bottled hydrogen were also placed in a circular configuration around the main charge, to enhance the fireball and afterburn of the solid metal particles. The use of compressed gas cylinders in this type of attack closely resembles the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing 10 years earlier. Both of these attacks used compressed gas cylinders to create fuel-air and thermobaric bombs that release more energy than conventional high explosives. According to testimony in the bomb trial, only once before the 1993 attack had the FBI recorded a bomb that used urea nitrate. Moreover, FBI agent Frederic Whitehurst was strongly critical of the procedures used to determine that the bomb contained urea nitrate; according to his testimony, he urinated in a vial, dried the urine and gave a sample of it to the analysts, who still concluded that the substance handed to them was urea nitrate. There is the 1993 World Trade Center Bombing Memorial located at the North Pool on Panel N-73. 

The capture of Salameh and Yasin led authorities to Ramzi Yousef's apartment, where they found bomb-making materials and a business card from Mohammed Jamal Khalifa. Khalifa was arrested on December 14, 1994, and was deported to Jordan by the INS on May 5, 1995. He was acquitted by a Jordanian court and lived as a free man in Saudi Arabia until he was killed in 2007. In 2002, it was made public that Yasin, the only person involved in the bombing who was never convicted by US authorities, was being held as a prisoner on the outskirts of Baghdad, Iraq since 1994. When journalist Lesley Stahl interviewed him there for a segment on 60 Minutes on May 23, 2002, Yasin appeared in prison pajamas and handcuffs. Yasin has not been seen or heard from since the interview. He was not located during the 2003 invasion of Iraq. In March 1994, Salameh, Nidal Ayyad, Mahmud Abouhalima and Ahmad Ajaj were each convicted in the World Trade Center bombing. In the course of the trial, it was revealed that the FBI had an informant, a former Egyptian army officer named Emad Salem. Salem claimed FBI involvement in building of the bomb. He secretly recorded hundreds of hours of telephone conversations with his FBI handlers. Federal authorities denied Salem's view of events and the New York Times concluded that the tapes "do not make clear the extent to which Federal authorities knew that there was a plan to bomb the World Trade Center, merely that they knew that a bombing of some sort was being discussed." On September 22, 2011, the New York Court of Appeals, in a four to three ruling, excluded the Port Authority from claims of negligence related to the 1993 bombing. In May 1994, they were sentenced to 240 years in prison. In the years since, they have received several sentencing reductions, which could allow them to walk free in their 90s or 100s. 

The 9/11 Tragedy

 

The events of September 11, 2001 involving the terrorist attacks must be understood fully in a chronological fashion. The terrorists involved in the attacks were influenced by extremists like Sayyid Qutb. From 1976 to 1980, Osama Bin Laden was radicalized by Qutb while attending King Abdulaziz University for business administration. In 1979, Osama Bin Laden came into Afghanistan to assist the Sunni Mujahideen in the Afghan Soviet War. In 1981, Bin Laden's future deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri, the leader of Jama at al-Jihad, was arrested for his role in the assassination of Anwar Sadat and imprisoned for three years. By October 1984, Osama bin Laden co-founded the network of Maktab al-Khidamat, with Adullah Yusuf Azzam in Afghanistan plus Pakistan. They wanted to recruit extremists to promote the Afghan resistance. Al-Qaeda forms its first training camps in Afghanistan by February of 1987. Bin Laden also survived a Soviet attack during the Battle of Jaji on May 25, 1987. His reputation grows.  The Persian Gulf War further made Osama bin Laden stricter in his call for jihad against the West. On September 1990, Bin Laden makes an offer to Sultan bin Abdulaziz Al Saud to defend Saudi Arabia from Ba'athist Iraq with 100,000 fighters after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. He is turned down, and he became embittered by the intervention of non-Islamic troops from the U.S.-led international coalition in the Gulf War. Al-Qaeda bombs Yemen hotels in Aden filled with U.S. military forces on December 29, 1992. Bin Laden's Saudi citizenship was revoked on April 9, 1994. The Taliban was forced by Mohammed Omar at Kandahar. Bin Laden issued a fatwa declaring war on America on August 23, 1996. On August 7, 1998, the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania are carried out by Al-Qaeda. The USS Cole was bombed in Yemen by Al-Qaeda on October 12, 2000.  

The following are the events found on 9/11/2001. At 6:45am. on September 11, 2001, Atta and al-Omari arrived at Logan International Airport. 7:15 am. was when Khalid al-Mihdhar and Majed Moqed arrived at Washington Dulles International Airport and check in for American Airlines Flight 77. By 7:59 am. on 9/11, the American Airlines Flight 11 took off from Boston Logan International Airport, bound for Los Angeles International Airport. Flight 11 was hijacked on 8:14 am. On that same time, the United Airlines Flight 175 took off from Boston Logan and also bound for Los Angeles. At 8:20 am., American Airlines Flight 77 takes off from Washington Dulles International Airport, also bound for Los Angeles. United Airlines Flight 93 took off from Newark International Airport, bound for San Francisco International Airport on 8:42 am. Flight  175 was hijacked on 8:42-46 am. Flight 11 crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center between the 93rd and 99th floors on 8:46:20 am. Flight 77 was hijacked on 8:50-54 am. By 9:03 am, President Bush entered a classroom as part of his school visit. On 9:03:02 am., Flight 175 crashes into the South Tower of the World Trade Center between the 77th and 85th floors. On 9:05 am.: After brief introductions to the Booker Elementary students, President Bush is about to begin reading The Pet Goat with the students when Chief of Staff Andrew Card interrupts to whisper to the president, "A second plane hit the second tower. America is under attack."  The President stated later that he decided to continue the lesson rather than alarm the students. By 9:14 am: President Bush returns to an adjacent classroom commandeered by the U.S. Secret Service. The classroom contains a telephone, a television showing the news coverage, and several senior staff members. The President speaks to Vice President Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, New York Governor George Pataki, and FBI Director Robert Mueller, and prepares brief remarks. 

On 9:37:46 am., Flight 77 crashes into the western side of The Pentagon and starts a violent fire. On 9:45, United States airspace is shut down; all operating aircraft are ordered to land at the nearest airport. Flight 93 was hijacked on 9:28 am. On 9:59 am, the South Tower of the World Trade Center collapsed, 56 minutes after the impact of Flight 175.  The South Tower collapsed on 9:59:00 am. Flight 93 crashed into a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania on 10:03:11 am. The North Tower collapsed on 10:28:22 am. On that time, the Marriott Hotel, located at the base of the two towers, is also destroyed. Five stories of part of the Pentagon collapse due to the fire on 10:50:19 am. By 1:04 pm., President Bush puts the U.S. military on high alert worldwide (known as Force Protection Condition Delta). Taped remarks from the President were aired from Barksdale Air Force Base, stating that "freedom itself was attacked this morning by a faceless coward and freedom will be defended." He also said that the "United States will hunt down and punish those responsible for these cowardly acts." He then leaves for a U.S. Strategic Command bunker located at Offutt Air Force Base in Bellevue, Nebraska. On 5:20:33 pm., World Trade Center 7 (which was a 47-story building) collapsed. By 8:30 pm: U.S. President George W. Bush addresses the country from the White House in Washington, D.C. On 11:30 pm: Before sleeping, President Bush entered into his journal: "The Pearl Harbor of the 21st century took place today...We think it's Osama bin Laden."  

Twin Towers and Building Number Seven 

The destruction of the New York City World Trade Center Towers existed by many events. First, 2 hijacked commercial airlines struck both towers. World Trade Center One or the North Tower was hit first at 8:46 am. EST, and it collapsed at 10:28 am. World Trade Center Two or the South Tower was hit at 9:03 am. and collapsed at 9:59 am. The resulting debris severely damaged or destroyed more than a dozen other adjacent and nearly structures. In September 2005, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) published the results of its investigation into the collapse. The investigators did not find anything substandard in the design of the twin towers, noting that the severity of the attacks was beyond anything experienced in buildings in the past. They determined the fires to be the main cause of the collapses, finding that sagging floors pulled inward on the perimeter columns, causing them to bow and then to buckle. Once the upper section of the building began to move downwards, a total progressive collapse was unavoidable. The cleanup of the World Trade Center site involved round-the-clock operations and cost hundreds of millions of dollars. Some surrounding structures that were not hit by the airplanes still sustained significant damage, requiring them to be torn down. Demolition of the surrounding damaged buildings continued even as new construction proceeded on the Twin Towers' replacement, the new One World Trade Center, which was opened in November 2014. The World Trade Center towers were designed with a framed tub structure. It had a floor truss system and a concrete floor over steel pans.   

The buildings were square and 207 ft (63 m) on each side but had chamfered 6 feet 11 inches (2.11 meters) corners making the exterior of each building roughly 210 ft (64 m) wide. Numerous, closely spaced perimeter columns provided much of the strength to the structure, along with gravity load shared with the steel box columns of the core.  Above the tenth floor, there were 59 perimeter columns along each face of the building spaced 3 feet 4 inches (1.02 meters) on center.   While the towers were square, the interior cores were rectangular and were supported with 47 columns that ran the full height of each tower. All the elevators and stairwells were in the core, leaving a large column-free space between it and the perimeter that was bridged by prefabricated floor trusses. As the core was rectangular, this created a long and short span distance to the perimeter columns. The floor has a 4-inch-thick lightweight concrete slabs laid on a fluted steel deck. Even an analysis of the impacts of low speed jet aircraft impacts had been undertaken prior to their completion, the full scope of those studies no longer exists. Nevertheless, since fire had never caused a skyscraper to collapse and aircraft impacts had been considered in their design, their destruction initially came as a surprise to some in the engineering community.  

Leslie Robertson, one of the chief engineers working on the design of the World Trade Center, stated that he considered the scenario of the impact of a Boeing 707, which might be lost in the fog and flying at relatively low speeds while seeking to land at either JFK or Newark Airports. In an interview with the BBC two months after the building collapses, Robertson claimed that, "with the 707, the fuel load was not considered in the design, I don't know how it could have been considered." In the interview, Robertson stated that the main difference between the design studies and the event that ultimately caused the towers to collapse was due to the velocity of the impact, which greatly increased the absorbed energy, and was never considered during the construction process.  

During their investigation into the collapse, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) obtained a three-page white paper that stated the buildings would survive an aircraft-impact of a Boeing 707 or DC 8 flying at 600 miles per hour (970 km/h). In 1993, John Skilling, lead structural engineer for the WTC, during an interview conducted after the 1993 World Trade Center bombing remarked, "Our analysis indicated the biggest problem would be the fact that all the fuel (from the airplane) would dump into the building. There would be a horrendous fire. A lot of people would be killed", he said. "The building structure would still be there." In its report, NIST stated that the technical ability to perform a rigorous simulation of aircraft impact and ensuing fires is a recent development, and that the technical capability for such analysis would have been quite limited in the 1960s.   In their final report on the collapses, the NIST stated that they could find no documentation that examined the impact of a high-speed jet nor that of a large scale fire fueled by aviation fuel. Fireproofing was deficient by 2001. The aircraft removed a large part of the fireproofing contributing to the buildings' collapse.  In WTC 1 the impact stripped the insulation off 43 of 47 core columns on more than one floor as well as floor trusses over a space of 60,000 square feet (5,600 m2). In WTC 2 the impact removed insulation from 39 of the 47 columns on multiple floors and from floor trusses spanning an area of 80,000 sq ft (7,400 m2). The collapse of the Twin was a progressive collapse. Structural components fell apart. So, the collapse of the Twin Towers existed by jet fuel, weakening floors, and the buildings never experiencing such a power from large airplanes before in a massive impact. These factors caused both buildings to come down.  

Building Number 7 collapsed in a symmetrical fashion. As the North Tower collapsed, heavy debris hit the 7 World Trade Center. This caused damage to the south face of the building. Fires burn all afternoon. Structural damage occurred to the southwest corner between Floors 7 and 17 and on the south facade between Floor 44 and the roof; other possible structural damage includes a large vertical gash near the center of the south facade between Floors 24 and 41.  The building was equipped with a sprinkler system, but had many single-point vulnerabilities for failure: the sprinkler system required manual initiation of the electrical fire pumps, rather than being a fully automatic system; the floor-level controls had a single connection to the sprinkler water riser; and the sprinkler system required some power for the fire pump to deliver water. Also, water pressure was low, with little or no water to feed sprinklers. Firefighters tried to stop the fires in WTC, but low water pressure hindered their efforts.  Around 3:30 pm FDNY Chief Daniel A. Nigro decided to halt rescue operations, surface removal, and searches along the surface of the debris near 7 World Trade Center and evacuate the area due to concerns for the safety of personnel. There was a cut in the building. It collapsed by 5:21:10 pm. EST. One issue with the NIST final report was that much of the steel was eliminated from the scene. Indeed, when NIST published its final report, it noted "the scarcity of physical evidence" that it had had at its disposal to investigate the collapses. Only a fraction of a percent of the buildings remained for analysis after the cleanup was completed: some 236 individual pieces of steel, although 95% of structural beams and plates and 50% of the reinforcement bars were recovered. The NIST and FEMA reports said that the jet fuel causing fires among many floors of the buildings caused a large heat output which caused the collapse of both Twin Towers. NIST's report said that fires from debris caused the WTC to collapse. Larry Silverstein said a comment about "pull it." A PBS documentary about the 9/11/01 attack, America Rebuilds, features an interview with the leaseholder of the destroyed WTC complex, Larry Silverstein. In it, the elderly developer makes the following statement: "I remember getting a call from the, er, fire department commander, telling me that they were not sure they were gonna be able to contain the fire, and I said, "We've had such terrible loss of life, maybe the smartest thing to do is pull it." And they made that decision to pull and we watched the building collapse." There are many views on what he meant by that, but it's a bizarre statement to make during a crisis. There are scholars and researchers who disagree with the official stories on the collapse of the buildings.  They have the right to their views. Pull it doesn't necessary mean demolish as it could mean to pull the firefighters away from the location as the fires in the WTC 7 were too dangerous (after people were evacuated from the building). It is also important that to this very day, we don't know everything pertaining to 9/11. We have the right to research information. 

My Memories of 9/11

I always remember the events of 9/11 like yesterday. The surreal and ironic thing is that many young adults were born after 9/11. Some young people today, including young adults, have never seen the Twin Towers fall on live television before. People like us, who are older Millenials, Generation X, Baby Boomers, etc., are some of the few people on Earth who experienced 9/11 back 25 years ago. It started on a Tuesday morning being a very sunny day in Virginia for me. During that time, I was 17 years old and my 18th birthday was coming up in a few months later in the year of 2001. The start of the day was normal and without controversy. It was during the late Summer near Fall. I was a freshman in college back then. First, I woke up to go to a college level Algebra class. I was in the university early in the morning. It was on a Tuesday, so classes readily end early. After the class was over, I came into the University's library to relax. There was a Yahoo chat that was very popular back then. On that Yahoo Chat, people talked about hijacked planes hitting a building in New York City. I didn't believe that at that time, because I couldn't fathom such a horrible event occurring like that. Such terrible events were only imagined in movies or television shows. So, I had great skepticism. I came home early, and I turned on the television at my house. Immediately, I saw the TV screen from the news showing the fires from the crash and massive damage on the Twin Towers. I saw the emotion of reporters and other journalists. An immediate shock certainly was in my consciousness. I knew that this time represented a new era of human history, and nothing will ever be the same again. It was so serious and bad that schools in Virginia came home early. I ate lunch, and tons of people asked questions about the whole nefarious attacks in the United States of America. The whole atmosphere of the day was filled with sadness and shock. Other people unfortunately did evil by vandalizing mosques and Muslim centers across America. Yet, we believe in religious freedom, not religious bigotry. No one of any creed should have his or her houses of worship harmed or desecrated. No one religion should be blamed for the September 11th attacks, only the terrorists who did such cowardly, evil actions. Networks like ABC, NBC, MSNBC, FOX, CNN, etc. have shown nonstop coverage of 9/11 throughout the whole day including the night. I witness the collapse of both Twin Towers live on television. The collapse of Building Number Seven transpired during the afternoon. Many people fought the hijackers on Flight 93, and the airplane crashed as Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Even during the early morning of 9/12, reporters were still on the scene talking about the tragic news. People were in a daze in their faces for weeks after 9/11 too. It took a long time for society in general to break out of the emotional malaise. It took a long time for many human beings to adjust to this new reality.

Back then, many Americans didn't know about Operation Cyclone which was a CIA program to aid, finance, and arm the Afghan mujahideen in Afghanistan from 1979 to 1989 in trying to stop the Soviets from being in Afghanistan. Sources show how the CIA funded Haqqani and Hekmatyar (who were key allies of Osama bin Laden. Many CIA agents, journalists, and U.S. government officials deny any direct CIA funding of Osama bin Laden. You have the right to believe them or not). Haqqani had direct cash payments from CIA agents without the mediation of the ISI. Haqqani and his network were involved in the formation and growth of Al-Qaeda. The US worked with the Pakistani ISI to aid the Afghan Mujahideen too. The victims of this horrendous tragedy of 9/11 suffer pain every day. Afterwards, many voices were suppressed if they spoke out against the most egregious policies of the War on Terror like unjust wars, profiling Muslims unjustly, the Patriot Act, and the warrantless spying against American citizens. One example was when MSNBC's Phil Donahue show was on, his show was immediately cut after Phil spoke out publicly against the Iraq War in 2003. I remember watching the Phil Donahue show and Dave Chapelle debating Pat Buchannan (who was the Knight of Malta known for making far right, extremist statements for decades. He was not only an aide to Richard Nixon back in the 1970s). Another example was when Jeremy Glick, the son of a 9/11 victim, was cursed out and disrespected by Bill O'Reilly (who was on FOX News. Bill O'Reilly was later fired from FOX News for allegations of sexual harassment of women. O'Reilly works for Newsnation now in 2026). Jeremy Glick spoke out against the invasion of Afghanistan. The Bush administration reached massive popularity during the immediate aftermath of 9/11 until the events of the Iraq War and Hurricane Katrina existed. Also, the news coverage has shown the heroic firefighters and other rescues who saved lives. They risked their lives for others. Many of them passed away, so their memories of almsgiving and courage will always be remembered by all of us. After the events of September 11, 2001, I did embrace the love of civil liberties more thoroughly. After the Great Recession of the late 2000's, I certainly became more progressive on economic issues. Every day of my life, I will always remember 9/11 completely.

Osama bin Laden

For years, there has been business relationships between the Bush and Bin Laden families. Back then, few people knew of this fact. Now, we do. Obama bin Laden's brother was Salem. The English media has shown a photograph from 1971. It displayed Osama when he was 14 and Saleem when he was 19. They were in a summer holiday at the Astoria Hotel in Falun, Sweden. The Bin Laden family had immense wealth. According to the Daily Mail’s Peter Allen, “…Salem went on to become a business partner of the man who is leading the hunt for his brother…" In June of 1977, George W. Bush formed his own drilling company called Arbusto Energy (Arbusto means bush in Spanish). This was based at Midland, Texas. Like his father's business, George W. Bush's oil business was backed by businessmen like Houston businessman James R. Bath. Bath had links to Saudi Arabian sheiks.  Time reporters Beaty and Gwynne suggest in their book that the $50,000 Bath invested in Dubya's Arbusto Energy drilling company may have belonged to Bath's Saudi clients since the Houston businessman "had no substantial money of his own at the time." At the time of the investment, Bath was a representative for Saudi businessman Salem bin Laden, the oldest son of Mohammed bin Laden, founder of the Saudi Binladin Group, the largest old construction company in Saudi Arabia. Salem was the head of the bin Laden family business by 1977. George W. Bush knew of the Texas businessman James Bath. Salem Bin Laden was one of the investors in the Arbusto oil company. Salem bin Laden and banker and BCCI member Halid bin Mahfouz wanted to go into the oil business. Bath's business partner Charles White later became involved in a legal dispute with Bath, during which he claimed that Bath had actually invested in the company on behalf of bin Laden and other Saudi businessmen.  

Both Bath and Bush have denied this, and according to journalist Craig Unger, who examined the relationship between the Bushes and Saudi financiers in his 2004 book House of Bush, House of Saud. Journalist Steve Coll, whose book The Bin Ladens examines the family's history, mentioned that there is no evidence to support the claim. In 1984, his company merged with the larger Spectrum 7, and Bush became chairman. The company was hurt by decreased oil prices, and it folded into HKN, Inc.  Saleem died in a plane crash in 1988 near San Antonio, Texas. Salem was a close friend of Saudi King Fahd.  During the 1980’s, the controversial BCCI banking institution grew as well.   Education in Afghanistan in the years preceding the Soviet-Afghan war was largely secular. With religious textbooks produced in Nebraska, the number of CIA sponsored religious schools (madrasahs) increased from 2,500 in 1980 to over 39,000. The following sources reveal this information on how the West funded the mujahadeen in Afghanistan:  

“Advertisements, paid for from CIA funds, were placed in newspapers and newsletters around the world offering inducements and motivations to join the [Islamic] Jihad.” (Pervez Hoodbhoy, Peace Research, 1 May 2005) 

“The United States spent millions of dollars to supply Afghan schoolchildren with textbooks filled with violent images and militant Islamic teachings….The primers, which were filled with talk of jihad and featured drawings of guns, bullets, soldiers and mines, have served since then as the Afghan school system’s core curriculum. Even the Taliban used the American-produced books...” (Washington Post, 23 March 2002) “According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujahideen began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, Dec 24 1979. But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise Indeed, it was July 3, 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention.” (Former National Security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, Interview with Le Nouvel Observateur, 15-21 January 1998). What more evidence that people need to witness the fact that these elitists wanted to control the resources of the Middle East and Central Asia.  

The BCCI was the Bank of Credit and Commercial International. It was a crooked offshore bank that the CIA used to run guns to Hussein, finance Osama bin Laden, move money in the illegal Iran-Contra operation, and carry out other secret agency “ops.” BCCI was created in 1972 by a Pakistani banker, Agha Hasan Abedi, with the support of Sheik Zayed bin Sultan al Nahyan, ruler of Abu Dhabi and head of the United Arab Emirates. Its corporate strategy was money laundering. It became the banker for drug and arms traffickers, corrupt officials, financial fraudsters, dictators and terrorists. The CIA used BCCI Islamabad and other branches in Pakistan to funnel some of the two billion dollars that Washington sent to Osama bin Laden's Mujahedeen to help fight the Soviets in Afghanistan. It moved the cash the Pakistani military and government officials skimmed from U.S. aid to the Mujahedeen. It also moved money as required by the Saudi intelligence services. Both Syed A. Hussain (b. 1960 or 1961) and Amjad Awan, (b. 1946 or 1947) a Pakistani banker that headed the Panamanian branch of BCCI in the early 1980s, assisted Noriega with Noriega's accounts at BCCI. William von Raab, a former U.S. Commissioner of Customs, also told the Kerry Committee that the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency held "several" accounts at BCCI. According to a 1991 article in Time magazine, the National Security Council also had accounts at BCCI, which were used for a variety of covert operations, including transfers of money and weapons during the Iran–Contra affair.  

The BCCI was so corrupt that it ended in 1991.  The Washington Post reported that the Carlyle Group (which supported investments globally) met at the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Washington, D.C.  on the day of 9/11. In that meeting were former President George H. W. Bush, James Baker, and Shafiq bin Laden or the brother of Osama bin Laden. Shafig bin Laden is an investor. George H. W. Bush would make many speeches years ago on behalf of the Carlyle Group. No commercial planes, including chartered flights, were permitted to fly into, out of, or within the United States until Sept. 13, 2001. After the air space reopened, six chartered flights with 142 people, mostly Saudi Arabian nationals, departed from the United States between Sept. 14 and 24. One flight, the so called bin Ladin flight, departed the United States on Sept. 20 with 26 passengers, most of them relatives of Osama Bin Laden. This is further documented in the article entitled, "Bush ties to bin Laden haunt grim anniversary" written by Cindy Rodriguez from the Denver Post (on September 11, 2006). The Bin Laden family liquidated its holdings in Carlyle's funds in October 2001, just after the September 11 attacks, when the connection of their family name to the Carlyle Group's name became impolitic.

The 9/11 Commission

The 9/11 Commission report was a very important part of our history as human beings. The report is formally named the Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States. This is a governmental report whose purpose is to find the events leading up to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. It was prepared by the Kean/Hamilton Commission at the request of then President George W. Bush and Congress. People can download the whole report for free. The commission was established on November 27, 2002 (442 days after the attack) and their final report was issued on July 22, 2004. The report was originally scheduled for release on May 27, 2004, but a compromise agreed to by then Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert allowed a sixty-day extension through July 26. The commission interviewed over 1,200 people in 10 countries. It reviewed a half million pages of documents including closely guarded classified national security documents. It used the FBI's PENTTBOM investigation. After releasing the report, commission chair Thomas Kean declared that both Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush were "not well served" by the FBI and CIA. The 9/11 Commission was a middle of the road report. It denied that the Saudi government conspired the attacks or funded attacks, but even the report admitted that Saudi Arabia was the primary source of Al-Qaeda funding. That is a contradiction. We can all agree that the hijackers came from all over the world, and they were members of al-Qaeda (which is a terrorist organization led by Osama bin Laden). The Commission is right to say that Saddam Hussein never assisted Al-Qaeda to carry out 9/11 attacks. The commission report chose to place blame for failure to notify the military squarely upon the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). Ben Sliney, FAA operations manager at Herndon, Virginia, and Monte Belger, FAA Acting Deputy Administrator on 9/11, both stated to the commission that military liaisons were present and participating in Herndon's response as the events of 9/11 unfolded. Sliney stated that everyone who needed to be notified, including the military, was. The Commission wanted a creation of a National Intelligence Director over the CIA and the FBI and changes to security and immigration policy. As time went on, we know that parts of the 9/11 Commission report were a whitewash with blatant omissions and conflicts of interests.  One of the biggest whitewashes of the 9/11 Commission report is that it omitted the whole story about warnings of terrorism against 9/11 prior to the attacks. While the report did describe that "the system was blinking red" and that an al Qaeda attack was imminent, it did not include the testimony of former CIA director George Tenet to the commission in January 2004, in which he claimed to have given a specific warning to the Administration in a July 2001 meeting with Condoleezza Rice. Commission members Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton stated that they had not been told about the meeting. But the Boston Globe reported that "it turns out that the panel was, in fact, told about the meeting, according to the interview transcript and Democratic commission member Richard Ben-Veniste, who sat in on the interview with Tenet." George W. Bush waited until 2002 to form the Commission. Henry Kissinger was head of the Commission. So much outcry came about this that he resigned over conflicts of interests as Henry Kissinger is totally in league with the establishment. The members of the 9/11 Commission are Chairman Thomas Kean (He was the former Republican Governor of New Jersey). Vice Chairman Lee H. Hamilton (a former Democratic House Representative of Indiana), Richard Ben-Veniste (Democratic attorney part of the Watergate investigation), Max Cleland (a Democrat from Georgia and a former Senator), Fred F. Fielding a (Republican), Jamie Gorelick (a Democrat and former U.S. Deputy Attorney General in the Clinton administration), Slade Goton, Bob Kerrey, John F. Lehman, Timothy J. Roemer, and James R. Thompson. Other people on staff are Philip D. Zelikow, Christopher Kojm, Daniel Marcus, John J. Farmer, Dieter Snell, Janice Kephart, and Alvin S. Felzenberg. Some have compared this Commission to the Warren Commission. Former NJ Governor Thomas Kean was on the board of Amerada Hess petroleum company and had dealings with Saudi interests.  

Rudy Giuliani was the Republican Mayor of New York City for years. He was propped up by the establishment as “America’s Mayor,” but his response to 9/11 is more complex and nuisance. Also, his ultimate legacy is about being a reactionary person. He has promoted anti-civil liberty policies like him being in favor of stop and frisk. Rudy once married his own cousin, and he spoken stereotypical, racist comments about black people fighting police brutality. Giuliani supports Trump unconditionally, so his legacy has been filled with corruption. The irony was that Senator Max Cleland was expelled from the 9/11 Commission when he asked too many important questions. He said that, 

"As each day goes by, we learn that this government knew a whole lot more about these terrorists before September 11 than it has ever admitted.'" (Senator Max Cleland, member of the official National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Against the United States quoted in the New York Times, October 27, 2003). Max Cleland also said that, "If this decision stands, I, as a member of the commission, cannot look any American in the eye, especially family members of victims, and say the commission had full access. This investigation is now compromised." Max Cleland accused the Bush administration of delaying access to vital documents in an effort to run out the clock on its investigation. The 9/11 Commission refused to investigate Cheney's energy task force documents, all of the warnings of attacks using planes as weapons, the CIA/National Reconnaissance war games that took place on 9/11, and the radar tapes and tapes of air traffic controllers in the FAA on 9/11. Philip Zelikow co-authored a book with Condoleezza Rice before 9/11. The 9/11 Commission omitted Osama bin Laden's ties to U.S. Intelligence when Bin Laden fought the Soviets in Afghanistan during the 1980's. Kean is a director of petroleum giant Amerada Hess, which in 1998 formed a joint venture--known as Delta Hess--with Delta Oil, a Saudi Arabian company, to develop oil fields in Azerbaijan. One of Delta's backers is Khalid bin Mahfouz, a shadowy Saudi patriarch married to one of Osama bin Laden's sisters. According to a 1998 Senate testimony of former CIA director James Woolsey, powerful financier Khalid bin Mahfouz’s younger sister is married to Osama bin Laden. (US Senate, Senate Judiciary Committee, Federal News Service, 3 Sept. 1998, See also Wayne Madsen, Questionable Ties, In These Times,12 Nov. 2001). The 9/11 Commission allowed Bush and Cheney to give their testimonies together instead of separately.  

Philip Shenon, a reporter for The New York Times, in a book released in February 2008, entitled, "The Commission: The Uncensored History of the 9/11 Investigation" claims that Zelikow had closer ties with the White House than he publicly disclosed and that he tried to influence the final report in ways that the staff often perceived as limiting the Bush administration’s responsibility and furthering its anti-Iraq agenda. According to the book, Zelikow had at least four private conversations with former White House political director Karl Rove, and appears to have had many frequent telephone conversations with people in the White House. The Commission staff kept a record only of calls Zelikow received, but Government Accountability Office records show his frequent calls to the 456 telephone exchanges in the 202 area code used exclusively by the White House. Also, the book states that Zelikow ordered his assistant to stop keeping a log of his calls, although the Commission's general counsel overruled him. Zelikow had pledged to have no contact with Rove and Condoleezza Rice during his work for the 9/11 Commission.  Commission chairmen Lee H. Hamilton and Thomas H. Kean accused the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of making a conscious decision to impede the commission’s inquiry after the agency received a memorandum prepared by Philip D. Zelikow, the panel's former executive director. Zelikow prepared this memorandum after former commission members reviewed thousands of classified documents following the disclosure that the CIA in November 2005 destroyed videotapes documenting the interrogations of two al-Qaeda operatives.  In January 2008, NBC News released an investigative report on the 9/11 Commission's use of information acquired by torture of detainees. The 9/11 Commission omitted Able Danger. Former Senator Bob Graham, the co-chair of an earlier congressional report into the 9/11 attacks, has called for re-opening an investigation into Saudi funding of the attack and the declassification of documents discussing the subject, including 28 pages from that report. Lee Hamilton is a member of the CFR along with Jamie Gorelick. Timothy Roemer and other people in the Commission complained about access issues in forming the results of their investigations.  

Former U.S. Senator Mike Gravel gave a National Press Club speech on 9/9/10 saying: "The [9/11 Commission's] investigation was not what we call an investigation. It was to develop a storyline of what happened to be fed to the American people and to receive their acquiescence. Victims' family members...have said that only a fourth of their well-researched questions were answered." 

Our Civil Liberties

American civil liberties are part of our culture. These fundamental human rights have protected our lives, and since 9/11, ironically, our civil liberties are under threat in many cases. Our constitutional rights were codified by the Bill of Rights in 1791 and the rest of the U.S. Constitution. Also, other God-given rights that belong to us by birthright. The freedom of speech, the freedom of the press, the right of religious freedom, and the right to a fair trial have been great blessings in our land. For generations, we had to fight for our civil liberties. For example, the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the Constitution, during the Reconstruction period, existed after the American Civil War (and after the defeat of the notorious Confederate enemy). Women had the right to vote by the 19th Amendment in 1920. The 1925 Gitlow v. New York Supreme Court decision mentioned that First Amendment rights apply to state governments as well as federal one, expanding free-speech protections nationwide. The Brown v. Brown of Education in 1954, the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the 1965 Voting Rights Act, and the Griswold v. Connecticut decision of 1965 (which promoted the constitutional right to privacy, protecting personal autonomy, and martial contraceptive choices) expanded human civil liberties in numerous arenas too. The issue is that some reactionary interests (who are backed by large multinational corporations) want to suppress our fundamental human rights in many ways. Today, after 9/11, we have the continued expansion of rights and threats to our rights too.

After 9/11, the controversial USA Patriot Act was passed by October 2001. I don't agree with that law for many reasons including its ambiguous definition of terrorism found in Section 802. The Patriot Act expanded government surveillance, wiretapping, and search capabilities without standard probable cause. The Patriot Act was opposed by people from all over the political spectrum back in the 2000s.  Then, we have an executive order on November 2001 from President George W. Bush that allowed military tribunals to try non-citizens accused of terrorism without standard civilian court protections. The problem is that even non-citizens are bound by international law. You can't just treat any detainee any type of way. From 2002-2003, many federal agencies started to, in many cases, started illegal mass detentions of Arabic human beings and Muslim immigrants on minor immigration violations in secret sweeps. Many Muslims and Arabic Americans were racially profiled and monitored in secret by the federal government. I remembered that time very vividly. In 2003, the National Security Agency (or the NSA) secretly launched warrantless domestic wiretapping and communication tracking programs. The Bush administration began detaining individuals suspected of terrorism without trial, including “enemy combatants” like Yaser Hamdi and Jose Padilla. Courts allowed the government to close immigration hearings for detainees post-9/11, limiting public access. People resisted these policies from Day One.  Cities like Berkeley, Boulder, and Tacoma Park passed resolutions opposing federal civil liberties violations. From 2002 to 2003, we saw more Big Brother institutions like the Total Information Awareness program of the NSA (which was a controversial NSA program aimed at collecting and analyzing vast amounts of data, raising privacy concerns). There was the development of FISA (or the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that expanded federal government power and the FISA court). Guantanamo Bay increased it power to allow America to detain terrorism suspects without trial, leading to debates over torture and military commissions. We know that many detainees were abused in Abu Ghraib and at Guantanamo Bay. The National Security Division merged intelligence agencies and counterterrorism efforts. 

There was the Military Commissions Act of 2006 that formed tribunals for trying detainees at Guantanamo, bypassing traditional U.S. courts.  Groups like the ACLU, Human Rights Watch, and the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law worked to defend constitutional rights, challenge detention policies, and promote transparency. More of the American people opposed these efforts in 2006. The Supreme Court ruled in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld that military commissions at Guantanamo Bay violated U.S. and international law, affirming basic due process. This was in June 2006. In 2008, the Supreme Court decision of Boumediene v. Bush ruled that foreign terrorism suspects held at Guantanamo Bay had a constitutional right to challenge their detention in U.S. courts. In 2013, the known contractor Edward Snowden leaked documents revealing a massive, secret NSA collection of domestic telephone metadata and internet connections. Snowden's story is found in the Oliver Stone film Snowden, which showed the world the secret actions of the intelligence community in a disturbing fashion from tracking people from their P.C.s to secret intelligence programs. There were many whistleblowers before Snowden, but Snowden was the person who revealed so much that the federal government wants Snowden extradited to America ASAP, possibly facing life in prison. Snowden technically may have violated many laws (that view us disputed by many people), but I don't consider him a traitor, because his motivation was to promote human civil liberties, not destroy American society completely. We know now that many in the federal government violated the law in illegally monitoring human beings without just due process of the law. By June 2015, the Patriot Act expired and was replaced by the USA Freedom Act. It banned a lot of the collection of domestic phone records by the government and sent them to telecom companies. Debates continue on civil liberties, surveillance, digital privacy, net neutrality (or Internet freedom, etc.). The ACLU, Human Rights Act, and other organizations fight for our civil liberties every day. At the end of the day, there should be no surveillance except by due process and other legal procedures; there should be no detention except by due process and a trial; local groups have the right to promote human rights, and the three branches of government must have checks and balances (without a unitary executive despite Trump advocating for it). In 2026, ICE is running amok, and some of their members have assaulted people, killed Americans, abused the rights of immigrants in detention camps (as documented by researchers and eyewitness accounts), and try to intimidate Americans to support Trump's racist, xenophobic agenda. Yet, we are built different. We will resist tyranny in any of its manifestations period. 

Government Foreknowledge of Similar Attacks by the Usage of Planes

It is a historical fact that the United States government received warnings from even foreign countries that terrorist attacks were coming in America (even in the realm of planes) for years. This reality has been documented for years. Immediately following the attacks, President George W. Bush stated that: "Nobody in our government at least, and I don't think the prior government, could envisage flying airplanes into buildings." National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice claimed: "no-one could have predicted that they would try to use an airplane as a missile." An Air Force general called the attack: "something we had never seen before, something we had never even thought of.” A few days after the attacks, FBI Director Robert Mueller announced: "There were no warning signs that I'm aware of that would indicate this type of operation in the country.” We know that these comments are outright falsehoods and lies. Even Mueller noted that an FBI agent in Minneapolis said Moussaoui might be "that type of person that could fly something into the World Trade Center.” Mueller said this warning should have been followed more vigorously. Here are many examples of the U.S. government receiving warnings of various attacks against America (including attacks using planes as weapons): 

1. Chris Whipple from Politico wrote about how the Bush administration ignored a warning of an attack from the CIA months before 9/11, along with others that were far more detailed that previous revealed. There was the “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.” CIA Presidential Daily Brief. It was given to President George W. Bush on August 6, 2001. Months earlier, during the spring of 2001, the CIA repeatedly warned the White House that an attack was coming. In May of 2001, Cofer Black (then chief of the CIA’s counterterrorism center) mentioned that: “...it was very evidence that we were going to be struck, we were gonna be struck hard and lots of Americans were going to die.” George Tenet told Cofer that: “There were real plots being manifested.” July 10, 2001, was a meeting where the CIA talked about these things. It was first reported by Bob Woodward in 2006, and Tenet wrote about it in general terms in his 2007 memoir “At the Center of the Storm.” Tenet and Black, during the Spring of 2001 sent the Blue sky paper to Bush’s new national security team. They wanted to strike at Al-Qaeda. 

2. A top NSA whistleblower said that the NSA had all the information it needed prior to 9/11 to stop the attacks. The only reason the NSA didn’t share that information with other agencies is because of corruption and to consolidate power. There was widespread spying by the U.S. government on Americans long before 9/11. Ryan Singel wrote an article for Wired on 10/11/2007 entitled, “NSA Domestic Surveillance Began 7 Months Before 9/11, Convicted Qwest CEO claims.” This shows that NSA surveillance was more extensive than some perceive. An FBI informant hosted and rented a room to Mihdhar and another 9/11 hijacker in 2000. 

3. The Bojinka Plot was a foiled large-scale al-Qaeda terrorist attack to blow up eleven airliners and their passengers as they flew from Asia to America, due to take place in January 1995. In September 2002, one year after the 9/11 attacks, The Chicago Sun-Times reported that: "The FBI had advance indications of plans to hijack U.S. airliners and use them as weapons, but neither acted on them nor distributed the intelligence to local police agencies. From the moment of the September 11 attacks, all high-ranking federal officials insisted that the terrorists’ method of operation surprised them. Many continue to stick to that story. Actually, elements of the suicide hijacking plan were known to the FBI as early as 1995 and, if coupled with current information, might have uncovered the plot." 

4. In April 2001, NORAD ran a war game in which the Pentagon was to become incapacitated; a NORAD planner proposed the simulated crash of a hijacked foreign commercial airliner into the Pentagon, but the Joints Chiefs of Staff rejected that scenario as "too unrealistic.” 

5. On the morning of September 11, 2001, the National Reconnaissance Office, which is responsible for operating U.S. reconnaissance satellites, had scheduled an exercise simulating the crashing of an aircraft into their building, 4 miles (6 km) from Washington Dulles International Airport. 

6. The US administration, CIA, and FBI received multiple prior warnings from foreign governments and intelligence services, including France, Germany, the UK, Israel, Jordan, Afghanistan, Egypt, Morocco and Russia. The warnings varied in their level of detail, but all stated that they believed an Al-Qaeda attack inside the United States was imminent. British Member of Parliament Michael Meacher cited these warnings, suggesting that some of them must have been deliberately ignored. Some of these warnings include the following: On March of 2001, Italian intelligence warned of an al-Qaeda plot in the United States involving a massive strike involving aircraft, based on their wiretap of an al-Qaeda cell in Milan. On July 2001, Jordanian intelligence told US officials that al-Qaeda was planning an attack on American soil, and Egyptian intelligence warned the CIA that 20 al-Qaeda jihadists were in the United States, and that four of them were receiving flight training. August 2001– The Israeli Mossad gives the CIA a list of 19 terrorists living in the US and says that they appear to be planning to carry out an attack in the near future. In August 2001, The United Kingdom is warned three times of an imminent al-Qaeda attack in the United States, the third specifying multiple airplane hijackings. According to the Sunday Herald, the report is passed on to President Bush a short time later. September 2001 was when Egyptian intelligence warned American officials that al-Qaeda is in the advanced stages of executing a significant operation against an American target, probably within the US. 

7. FBI agent and Al-Qaeda expert John P. O'Neill warned of an al-Qaeda threat to the United States in 2000. He retired from his position in mid-2001, citing repeated blocking of his investigations of al Qaeda by FBI officials. After his retirement from the FBI, the World Trade Center hired him as its chief of security. He started work on August 23, 2001; 9/11 rescue workers found his body in a staircase inside the south tower rubble. 

8. According to Senator Bob Graham, who was chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee from June 2001 through the buildup to the Iraq war, "Two of the September 11, 2001, hijackers had a support network in the United States that included agents of the Saudi government, and the Bush administration and FBI blocked a congressional investigation into that relationship," as reported by the Miami Herald. In Graham's book, Intelligence Matters, he makes clear that some details of that financial support from Saudi Arabia were in the 27 pages of the congressional inquiry's final report that were blocked from release by the administration, despite the pleas of leaders of both parties on the House and Senate intelligence committees. In March 2012, as part of a lawsuit by 9/11 victims’ families, Graham and another former U.S. Senator Bob Kerrey said in affidavits that they were certain that there were direct links between the Saudi government and the attacks.

The Fair Assessment of the 9/11 Truth Movement

The 9/11 Truth Movement remains one of the most controversial social movements in human history. It still is very much powerful in modern day society. To the mainstream corporate media, 9/11 Truth is seen as persona non-grata. In the corporate media, the 9/11 Truth movement has been dismissed and disregarded as lunatic fringe and ought not to be given any serious discussion. Many mainstream newspapers, television hosts, and journalist castigate everyone in the 9/11 Truth movement as extremists without any nuance. We have to reject unnecessary hysteria and view any form of dissent as wrong. In our generation, we should evaluate the 9/11 truth from a fair appraisal. Since we are living in the 25th year anniversary of 9/11, we have to evaluate this movement conclusively for historical and research purposes. Now, the 9/11 truth movement is very diverse in their members. Yet, they are unified in believing in the premise that the official story of 9/11 is false. The official story of the September of the September 11 attacks that a group of Al-Qaeda terrorists had hijacked four airliners and crashed them into the Pentagon and the original World Trade Center Twin Towers (without any governmental knowledge), which consequently collapsed. The 9/11 truth movement rejects the major findings of the 9/11 Commission and the official National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) reports, such as the collapse of 7 World Trade Center. They are divided into many categories. One group believes overtly that the Bush administration or other government/corporate entities engineered the September 11th attacks themselves. Another faction of 9/11 truth believe that the U.S. government had foreknowledge and intentionally allowed the 9/11 attacks to exist. Another group believes that the government covered up the 9/11 attacks for various nefarious purposes. All of these factions are mostly unified in opposing the war on terror, opposing the Patriot Act including the USA Military Commissions Act, and desiring to see social changes in the world. 9/11 Truth members have been made up of people from across the political spectrum like liberals, conservatives, and libertarians. They have promoted their messages via new media platforms like online social networks, blogs, documentaries, podcasts, etc. In 2004, John Buchanan ran for president on a 9/11 truth platform. Jeff Boss ran in the 2008, 2012, 2016, and 2020 US presidential elections on platforms promoting the movement. Many desire an independent investigation into the attacks of the September 11 attacks. By June and July 2001, William Cooper and Alex Jones claimed that  the US government planned terror attacks that would be blamed on Osama bin Laden. Both began broadcasting the "controlled demolition" conspiracy theory on the day of the 9/11 attacks. Alex Jones is compromised now, and he has been one of the major voices of the 9/11 Truth movement. Other members are Michael Ruppert, Barrie Zwicker, Charles Brisard, Andreas von Bulow, and other people. President George W. Bush has publicly criticized 9/11 Truth as promoting "outrageous conspiracy theories." A major percentage of 9/11 Truth believe that the Twin Towers and Building Number Seven collapsed by a controlled demolition like Steven E. Jones in his 2006 paper, "Why Indeed the WTC Buildings Completely Collapse?" Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth is an organization of architectural and engineering professional who agree with Steven E. Jones. Critics of the 9/11 Truth movement include Matt Tabbi of Rolling Stone, MIT professor Thomas W Eagar, and other people. 

My contention or belief is that I agree with the 9/11 Truth Movement on some issues and not on others.  Ironically, the 9/11 Truth Movement has did some good in getting more people interested in researching the war on terror, promoting human freedom, and questioning authority. They have done a great job in organizing people to promote human civil liberties and peace in the world. We all know about the imperfections found in the Patriot Act and in the USA Military Commissions Act. We know of the high level of surveillance technology in the world that came after 9/11 too including the excessive actions of ICE in communities nationwide. Many 9/11 Truth members unfortunately have promoted overt hoaxes that only advance falsehoods and not the truth. There are two major factions of the 9/11 Truth Movement. One faction is made up of sincere human beings who try to document information. They want serious research to be presented to the public. The other faction of this movement is made up of people who advance disinformation, falsehoods (like the myth that no plane hit the Pentagon which only distracts from real issues), and don't advance serious, documented information.

Back in March of 2004, the 9/11 Truth movement members met in March 2004 at the International inquiry into 9/11 being held at San Francisco, California. There is the intersectionality of 9/11 Truth members working in peace, environmental, and anti-imperialist movements too. It is not unusual to find that governments throughout human history organize terror to advance fear and control over the people. For example, Operation Gleiwitz was done by the Nazis in order to provoke the Nazi Germany invasion of Poland. We know about Operation Northwoods when some in the government wanted to bomb places in America to provoke an invasion of Cuba. President John F. Kennedy rejected that plan outright. We know about President LBJ exploiting the Gulf of Tonkin situation to advance the Vietnam War in another level. Operation Ajax was when British and American intelligence used a false flag operation to overthrow a democratically elected leader Muhammad Mossadeq from power in Iran (so, Western forces can get the oil resources in Iran. The Shah was installed, and the Shah was a dictator in Iran for decades). Operation Gladio was involved by NATO. Many 9/11 related questions still remain. By the end of this prose, you will know where I agree and disagree with 9/11 Truth. We know that just before 9/11, George W. Bush was ready to sign papers to involved the U.S. in Afghanistan (as sited by the British Jane's International Security magazine, the magazine of India Reacts from June 26, 2001, and from an article from Julian Boger as cited in The Guardian). Also, many of the same folks who claim to be against governmental corruption are allied with the far-right movements of extremists (and excuse neoliberal capitalism).

Some far right extremists even falsely equate neoliberalism with socialism when socialists defended labor rights, civil rights, and human rights for decades and centuries. Some of the fake "patriots" even equate any kind of government intervention with communists. These folks are the paleoconservative, anti-governmental individuals who dismiss any public health care programs and have a fetish of gun rights (there is nothing wrong with an innocent person owning a gun, but criminals should never own a gun. A gun is a tool not a god). In our time, we have many of these paleoconservative, info-entertainers who want to sell products and are multimillionaires at the expense of promoting paranoia, xenophobia, nativism, and other evils. We know which info-entertainer that I'm talking about. He's from Austin, Texas. His name is Alex Jones. On February 12, 2016, Alex Jones praised Barry Goldwater. Goldwater was the man who disgracefully opposed the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964 and didn’t rule out using nuclear weapons in Vietnam. His friend was General Curtis LeMay (he executed firebombing of even Japanese civilians during World War II) who tried to provoke war with the Russians during the 1950’s and the 1960’s. Alex Jones is silent on the American Security Council, the World Anti-Communist League, the Council for National Policy, the Western Goals Foundation, and Le Cercle. Alex Jones is also the friend of the notorious racist and sexist Ted Nugent. Birds of a feather do flock together. 

It is true that many political elites have done evil against many people and the Third World people, but I reject anti-progressive lies that are meant to advance xenophobia, sexism, and racism. Now, it is very important to expose government corruption. We know that the oligarchy has done illegal actions. I have noticed that these paleaoconservatives only attack the so-called “liberal” Eastern Establishment. They never attack the conservative establishment groups like the Council for National Policy, the American Security Council, Le Cercle, the Pilgrim Society, the John Birch Society, etc. because many of these groups have links to the far-right movements that they endorse. One leading Skulls & Bones author is Kris Millegan. He published the works of Sutton, Iserbyt, and others. His father is Lloyd Millegan, who was a ranking OSS, Army G2, and CIA officer. Lloyd Millegan Sr. was acquainted with John Foster Dulles from a very young age. A few years later Millegan, Sr. was recruited into the OSS and kept tabs on the notoriously reactionary and stubborn General Douglas MacArthur as one of the general's staffers. A full decade later, in 1956, years before the massive American troop involvement in the Vietnam War broke out, he was partying with General Edward Lansdale and even a few North Vietnamese leaders in Saigon. The common lie and myth was that JFK started American military involvement in the Vietnam War. The truth is that Eisenhower had military advisors in Vietnam long before JFK was President. Dulles, along with his brother, later belonged to the Pilgrim Society. MacArthur and Lansdale were favorites of the American Security Council. Even author Alexandra Robbins was a member of the Scroll & Key.  

Gordon Duff is senior editor of Veterans Today, has promoted the missile into the Pentagon myth. Dick Eastman is not only a person who believes in the lie that no 757 hit the Pentagon. He is an evil anti-Semite who believes in the slander of Holocaust denial. Jewish people, Roma people, black people, Slavic people, etc. died in the Holocaust by the murderous actions of the evil Nazis. I’m glad that the Allied forces defeated the Nazis by 1945. Many of the disinformation agents are racist Holocaust deniers like Ryan Dawson. Dr. Richard Falk is a CFR member, a proponent of the no plane hit the Pentagon myth, and he was a vocal support of the radical Ayatollah Khomeini back in the day. The CNP have members with links Oliver North and Jack Abramoff. The son of CNP board member Elsa Prince, Erik Prince, later founded and chaired Total Intelligence Solutions and Blackwater USA (with links to the Knights of Malta), the private CIA and Bush White House nexus of the JSOC assassination programs in the post 9/11 world. The CNP or the Council of National Policy is like the conservative version of the CFR where conservative leaders unite to promote their political philosophies. Blackwater later changed its name to Academi, with the new chairman being a long-time key shareholder in Coast to Coast AM. Top-level neocon, former CIA director and known CNP speaker James Woolsey chairs the advisory board of Executive Action, LLC, a firm named after the CIA's term for assassination. Also, these palaeconservatives who talk about conservativism readily believe in unrestrained corporate fascism by opposing any kind of involvement of the state in the market. Some want a ban on taxes and a powerless government. There is a huge difference between moderate socialism and communism. Even socialism is a reality in the world, and some aspects of socialism has helped many people.  The corporations that treat its personnel the worst - the lowest wages, the least amount of benefits, the longest hours, the harshest spy and enforcement measures against unionists, etc. are abysmally unjust. Even the good parts of FDR's New Deal program (with similar programs appearing in Western Europe) had progressive parts to it. The New Deal established a minimum wage, a maximum number of working hours, abolished child labor, provided pensions, and set up watchdog agencies for banks and corporations. To a large extent it ended the age of the robber barons and is one of the cornerstones of the modern social democracy. Therefore, there is nothing wrong with exposing real conspiracies, yet we must use accurate information and inspiration to call for justice too.  The official story is accurate to mention that many Islamist extremists wanted to attack America, and these extremists did attack America. Yet, it ignores how that much of the anger is a product of U.S. and Western intervention in the Middle East. Yet, this anger is no justification for 9/11 period. Also, the official story definitely ignores how governments have exploited terrorist attacks for their own aims of expanding the power of the oligarchy. The official story ignores how U.S. allies provided specific warnings about terrorist threats to America. Many FBI agents who tried to stop the attacks were blocked by headquarters. That was obstruction not incompetence. The official story ignores the CIA’s “plane into building exercise” and NORAD war games (which were conducted by Western forces) during that morning. Around noon on 9/11, air traffic controllers who handled some of the hijacked flights made a recording recalling their experiences of the events from a few hours earlier. The tape was later destroyed by an unidentified FAA supervisor without any transcripts taken.  These men were involving in having great influences in the entire WTC complex from leasing to security or involvement in the Western establishment. They are Peter G. Peterson, David Rockefeller, and Maurice Greenberg. Peterson was part of the Blackstone Group, he was a member of the Pilgrim Society, and he visited the Cercle group too. Sir Ronald Grierson was a long-time advisory board cochairman of the group. David Rockefeller, Maurice Greenberg, and Henry Kissinger are friends of each other and part of the political establishment. Many of these people have links to the Trilateral Commission and the Pilgrim Society. Blackstone is headquartered at 345 Park Avenue in Manhattan, New York City, with eight additional offices in the United States, as well as offices in London, Paris, Dusseldorf, Sydney, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Singapore, Beijing, Shanghai, Madrid, Mumbai, and Dubai.  The 9/11 Truth Movement correctly says that there was a deliberate conspiracy (by the neo-cons and other political establishment figures) to use the attacks as an excuse to promote the war on terror, an invasion in Middle Eastern and Central Asian nations, and for the West to get resources throughout the Earth. The 9/11 Truth movement is right that the 9/11 Commission is a complete whitewash of the facts. Some 9/11 truth people unfortunately mix true conclusions with myths and falsehoods (like the no plane hit the Pentagon myth, only explosives alone caused the Twin Towers to fall, and the pod myth). So, the 9/11 Truth Movement has been praised, reviled, and slandered. One thing is true. The 9/11 Truth Movement is here to stay. The 9/11 Truth movement has been courageous to show their views whether people agree with them or not. I agree with 9/11 Truth on some issues and not on others. I want to make that point known.  

 

The Heroes of 9/11

There are many heroes of 9/11. One such her was Marcy Borders. She was from Bayonne, New Jersey. She ran from her office covered in dust, and cancer took her life at the age of 42 years old. She worked as a legal assistant at Bank of America in the North Tower of the World Trade Center. She escaped the building when the attacks came in New York City. She wanted privacy to rebuild her life. Later, she was diagnosed with stomach cancer in August 2014. She passed away on August 24, 2015, in New Jersey. There were many black firefighters who died on 9/11 during the time of saving lives like Leon Smith Jr., Andre Fletcher, Ronnie Henderson, Shawn Powell, Gerald Baptist, Tarel Coleman, Vernon Cherry, William Henry, Keith Clascoe, Keithroy Maynard, Karl Joseph, and Vernon Richard. Firefighters of every color also saved lives too. Jackson survived by escaping the World Trade Center in both 1993 and in 2001. LeRoy W. Homer J. was a black pilot in the cockpit of Flight 93 who sacrificed his life to fight back against terrorists on Flight 93. He graduated from the United States Air Force Academy in 1987 and had a military career reaching the rank of Major. He joined United Airlines in 1995. 

He was a father, an Air Force Reserve officer, and a commercial first officer. He was 36 years old on 9/11. Flight 93 had more heroes like passengers Todd Beamer, Mark Bingham, Jeremy Glick, and Tom Burnett who fought the terrorists back forcing the plane to crash in an empty field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. The terrorists wanted to crash the plane into the U.S. Capitol or White House. When American Airlines Flight 77 stuck the Pentagon, Lt. Col. Marilyn Wills saved many lives while her hair was on fire. She was in the U.S. Army. Flight 77 had 30,000 pounds of jet fuel and slammed into the Pentagon's west side at 530 mph (almost directly below the 2nd floor conference room where Wills sat). She saved the life of civilian employee Lois Stevens.  For her actions, Lt. Col. Marilyn Willis was awarded the Soldier's Medal for heroism and the Purple Heart for her injury (with burns, smoke inhalation, and traumatic brain injury from the blast). She doesn't consider herself a hero. She lost many of her friends. Moira Smith was an NYPD officer who repeatedly ran back into the burning World Trade Center to guide civilians to safety before she was killed in the collapse. Genelle Buzman-McMillian was the last person pulled alive from the World Trade Center wreckage. She was a Port Authority Worker, who was trapped beneath the debris of the North Tower for 27 hours before being rescued on September 12, 2001. Her story if detailed in her memoir called Angel in the Rubble. FDNY leader Regina Wilson saved many lives on Ground Zero and fights for equity and inclusivity in the department to this day. Rick Rescorla saved nearly 2,700 employees and visitors. He was last seen heading back up the stairs before the tower collapsed in trying to save lives. Frank De Martini and Pablo Ortiz saved at least 77 people in the North Tower before sacrificing their lives. Ladder Company 6 helped a tired officer bookkeeper down the stairs to save her life just as the North Tower fell. 343 FNY firefighters and 71 law enforcement officer including dozens of emergency medical technicians died while actively running into the collapsing buildings to save human lives.

One unsung hero of 9/11 was CeeCee Ross Lyles. She said to her husband that "We're getting ready to do it now. It's happening." She put the phone down seconds later and fought to save people on Flight 93. The hijackers were cowards and CeeCee Ross Lyles and other heroes fought them to prevent the hijackers from crashing Flight 93 to the U.S. Capitol building. She was only 33 years old and a mother of four. She was a flight attendant and was a policc officer for Fort Pierce, Florida. She was a detective too. Colleagues called her fearless. She was considered for a promotion to sergeant. Her husband, Lorne, was a police officer too. CeeCee encouraged him to join the force. They married in 2000. She later was a flight attendant, and she completed her training by January 2001. She told her husband that she loved him before her passing. The husband and wife prayed over the telephone together. The passengers fought the hijackers and everyone on Flight 93 perished, but their memories live on forever. She and others saved tons of lives in Washington, D.C. with their heroism.

The Modern Times

The modern times since 9/11 has been an acuminate of dynamic historical events. Since September 11, 2001, we have seen things that would be seen as unimaginable in previous generations from CRISP genetic research to the usage of A.I. to create robotic technology. The U.S./NATO attack in Afghanistan by October 2001 changed everything. It was a war that the West created to find and defeat al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Over 20 years later, the Taliban still controls Afghanistan, and Osama bin Laden was killed in a mission in trying to kill him by U.S. military forces. The Iraq War intervention took place in March 2003 under the orders of then President George W. Bush. It was one of the worst foreign policy blunders in history filled with the deception of Iraq having massive amounts of weapons of mass destruction (promoted by Bush Jr., Powell, and the neo-conservatives), the Abu Ghraib scandals, and other events. Even after the Iraqi surge, American forces left Iraq in a high level after the existence of ISIS by the 2010s. The early 2010s saw the Arab Spring where Middle Eastern people tried to stop authoritarian Middle Eastern government which mixed results. The existed of COVID-19 since 2019 saw up to 33.5 million death being the worst pandemic in over 100 years. We face massive recessions since 2008 and during the 2020 COVID-era (this was the largest global recession since the Great Depression in the 1930s). The COVID-19 pandemic was a global health crisis since mid-2023. The 2020s saw an increase in wars globally like the illegal Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Gaza war, and now the 2026 Iranian war. This era saw hybrid wars, militarized police in America, the growth of authoritarian movement in the world, and a political polarization that has been at its highest since the 1960s and the American Civil War. We witnessed the rise of more 21st century Presidents like Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Trump. Kamala Harris lost the 2024 election, and now we have Trump in his 2nd and final term of office as President. Trump has shown authoritarian policies from attacking the free press as "enemies of the people," supporting DOGE (that has fired tons of innocent people from federal government jobs without a legitimate reason), supported militarized ICE agents to aggressive detain U.S. citizens (not just undocumented immigrants), ending DEI (or Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) programs that has harmed the human rights of various minority groups, trying to whitewash black history, and pardoned the January 6th terrorists. Trump has allowed the U.S. government to murder people in the Caribbean without due process of the law which is in violation of national and international law. Trump's major One Big Beautiful Bill has cut taxes for the super-rich, cut funding for Medicaid and SNAP (with adding more work requirements for people), and the CBO (or the Congressional Budget Office) says that the bill will increase the budget deficit by $3.4 trillion by 2034 (causing 11.8 million people to lose Medicaid coverage and eliminate SNAP benefits for three million people). One good news is that the Supreme Court ended Trump's birthright citizenship ban plan. Now, the DOJ wants four New York Times journalists to testify in court over leaks in dealing with an Air Force One report. This has nothing to do with classified information. This has to do with Trump and the DOJ attacking the freedom of speech and the freedom of the press in trying to intimidate journalists who disagree with Donald Trump. This is in 2026. 

Epilogue

I have lived during the time of September 11, 2001. It was a sunny day when it happened on a Tuesday morning. Then, the attacks transpired in a brutal, coordinated fashion. The terror on that day was unlike anything that I have witnessed in my life. It was the worst terrorist attack on American soil since the Pearl Harbor bombing back on December 7, 1941 (and the pogroms against black Americans in Red Summer and during the 19th century). The 9/11 tragedy existed in New York City, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. Buildings fell down, there was smoke all-over Downtown Manhattan, and people in New York City ran for their lives. To this day, many victims of 9/11 suffer cancer from the smoke spreading around vociferously in the air. Many victims of the smoke from 9/11 have passed away from cancer and other illnesses for years. The only people responsible for these attacks are al-Qaeda terrorists who were stone cold cowards. There is absolutely no excuse whatsoever for murdering innocent human life in cold blood period. Morality and integrity matter, and Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda network are the antithesis of true honor and morality. News coverage of the events was everywhere involving the attacks. Yet, these events never existed in a complete and utter vacuum. Heroes were in 9/11. People in planes fought the hijackers to prevent Flight 93 from hitting the White House or the United States Capitol building. People saved lives in the rubble of the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. Some first responders sacrificed their lives in protecting lives and saving human beings too. These are the real, sometimes unsung stories of the real champions of liberty and justice for all. Immediately after 9/11, there was a sense of patriotism, but some exploited patriotism for nefarious purposes. Many racists, xenophobes, and Islamophobes illegally and unjustly vandalized mosques and Islamic cultural centers immediately after 9/11. I remembered that vividly back in 2001. There was anthrax in many locations spreading too. Many Muslims in New York City and nationwide were harassed, profiled, assaulted, and discriminated against. Even President George W. Bush had to condemn these evils as a person's creed or religion shouldn't be used as an excuse for anyone to express bigotry and discrimination. Bush Jr. and the neo-conservatives promoted the War on Terror, attacked Afghanistan, created the unjust war in Iraq, and passed controversial (in my opinion) anti-civil liberty laws like the USA Patriot Act. There was the warrantless spying on Americans too by the NSA, etc. So, we live in a Brave New World when police with automatic weapons are around and the growth of Big Brother technology (which has been accelerated with new A.I. devices). By the 2010s and the 2020s, we have more regional wars and conflicts found in the Middle East, other parts of Asia, Africa, Europe, etc. September 11th should make us have the awareness that evil exists and the only way to combat it is to promote goodness and righteousness in causing the Dream (of human justice) to be made real in the Universe. 

DEDICATED TO THE VICTIMS AND THE VICTIMS' FAMILY PLUS FRIENDS.

NEVER FORGET AND ALWAYS REMEMBER. 

By Timothy