Your thoughts on September 11th
We'd like to hear from bloggers and podcasters on next week's segment as we look at the 5 years since the September 11th attacks. We want your thoughts on the event and where we go from here in trying to combat terrorism. The more personal the better: what it means to you, your community, your nation. You can leave a voicemail here (accept the security message when it pops up) or email upallnight@bbc.co.uk If you'd like to suggest a blogger or podcasters to talk to leave a note in the comments.
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I could still remember what happened. I was at work and some one told me about the WTC. I did not believe it. I said "I've seen everything" [I Lived in Europe and Latin America].
What I saw on the TV made me think. I called my wife. My Wife called my Daughter's school and removed her from the school. [Every family member was at school removing their children].
I was at work when I heard about the twin towers. My (then) boyfriend rang me to tell me an airplane had flown into on of the towers and then he rang me again to tell me about the second. At the time it just went over my head. When I went home I saw all the news on the television and it was as though I was watching a real life action movie. I wanted to say "as if!" (this is a phrase my brother and I used when we watched something so unrealistic we would say "as if" as in as if that would ever happen in real life).
Some miracles happened on that day as well as a lot of tragedy. I think Bush's reaction in sending in troops to Afghanistan was totally inapproriate and has succeeded in making things worse.
Guantanemo Bay merely fuel the situation more. If anything was to prove to the Muslim world that Westerns are hypocrits, then that it. I don't blame them. The was the arrested Muslims have been treated there is barbaric and makes me ashamed to say I am a Westerner.
I don't think you will ever stop terrorism now. Things have gone too far. There will always be someone willing to give their life for what they believe in and you can never stop that person if they are determined.
It is my sincere wish that we can all live in peace and harmony and while George W Bush is allowed to get away with Guantanemo Bay that will never happen.
I also wanted to add that after talking with my wife, I restablished contact with family members and friends [after a long absence] who were living in New York. The Positive was that I apreciate family and friends more. The Negative is that at times, I feel like the Republicans and Democrats are imposing a Police State in America.
I can remember it as if i happened yesterday in the morning of September 11 i had a lucky charm hanging on my wall now this charm weighed quite a bit about 5 mins before the first plane hit it fell off the wall and broke into 3parts!!(Unbelivable right) and my sister in law had a item she brought back from brazil it had been blessed by a witch doctor and at the same time it fell of of her mantle peice and the head was taken off not a good time.
But to make matters worse my brother at the time worked for BA and was about to leave london the day before for New York for a meeting in WTC Tower 1 his plane was delayed and did not make it to New York. when it all happened i just broke down to think of all those people lost and one of them could have been my brother it makes me look at life from another angle.
I wanted to add that I heard a West Virginia Radio Station on my Windows Media Player. The people interviewed were three politicians. One from the Republican Party, The Second from the Democratic Party, The Third from the Libertarian Party.
The Republican and Democrat stated with thunderous screams of support and applause: "This would not have happened if we had a Government like Cuba or North Korea. What we must do is flush our [US] Constitution down the Toilet".
The Libertarian tried to defende the US Constitution only to be booed out of the program.
September 11th will always stay in my mind. I work for a large UK Insurer and it is now and was back then a call centre. At 1:45pm on any weekday the phones are always at their busiest, at 1:45pm on September 11th 2001, the phones fell silent. Our IT managers even checked our phone lines but they were fine. Then as the events in the US unfolded, the email traffic became really busy. Staff returning from their lunch hours were full of shock and surprise. The day just felt so empty after that. I felt so depressed for many days after. I did expect a Middle Eastern country to be "nuked" or a major World War to start because of what had happened. It was truly a day when the World changed forever.
History always has and always will cough up its phlegm in the shapes of Ben Laden, Hitler, Gengis Khan, etc etc etc:
Without these pathetic misfits we would never learn about the dark side of ourselves:
As a race or a species, we have yet to remove ourselves from first base:
We keep on making the same mistakes over and over and over again: If it were not so tragic, the Earth and its inhabitants could be the greatest comedy show in the universe:
We left New York on the 6th September 2001 in a beautiful golden evening glow, the Twin towers bid a powerful farewell. Little did we know we would be the last Liner, SS Norway (ex SS France) to leave the safety of the harbour. We sailed north across the Grand Banks to Nova Scotia and then days later set of to do the Atlantic crossing.
With the prospect of 4 days at sea we wondered what would fill our time.
Lunch time 11th September the Captain announces there has been an accident and a plane has gone into one of the Twin Towers. We thought a tragic accident but a Southern US voice from down the table pronounces a terrorist attack. Over reaction we think. The Captain is speaking again, a second tower has been hit. That was it we ran down the corridors to our cabin and sat in disbelief as the screen showed a disaster movie.
When we had docked in New York the ship had embarked 1,000 NY'ers to add to the 1,000 people already on board.
The company opened up for free email and telephone communications. No where to go only wait for news. The carnival feel turned into blank, concerned faces. News constantly unfolded on a big screen in the Sports bar.
A hand was slapped on the back of my husband by a US retired navel officer, " We know what you Guy's have been going through all these years, terrorism has come to our shores, we'll newk them off the face of the earth!"
We just shook our heads this was the last response we needed.
Our daughter & son in law were safe down in Texas but were coming home, they left 2 days later from Boston on the QE2.
As the end of the trip continued the mood was no terrorist is going to change our way of life.
The press were waiting for us in Scotland as we were the first form of transport to arrive from the States.
Security was heightened at ports and flags were at half mast.
The SS Norway, on its last Trans Atlantic Cruise, returned to the States because the Americans turned inwards and prepared to fight terrorism.
The rest is history.
9/11 And 5 years one we have more propaganda from our broadcasting agencies and the the government. Hearts and Minds, how else do we allow the mass murder of innocents in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere go without commentary?
No context to what brought about this insignificant attack when it is compared to the greater inhumanity of American and European foreign policy in the the Mid-East Before 9/11 and certainly after 9/11.
Just as Jo Moore saw it as an 'Opportunity to bury bad news' the Americans led by its British cheerleader took the opportunity to take the extremist plans of the PNAC cabal led by the leqding Neo Conservative with their fascistic view of the world to steal and control the regions oil and gas resources.
Blair on the record has said repeatedly that it was he who suggested days if not hours after 9/11 to take care of Saddam.
The real war on terror: The figures just dont add up:
The American administration very helpfully reports the significant terror acts year on year and its Patterns of Global Terrorism reports are readily available to anyone that has access to the internet.
The following is what we can discover if one takes the time to consider its content.
[Note: terror attacks might be pipelines as they might be people, there is no differention in the total collated figures stated here.]
Between the years 1984 and 1987 we find that the number of significant terror attacks peaked with 666 attacks in 1986 . Post 1987 we find a steady decline in worldwide terror attacks averaging 400 by the year 2000, 405 persons were killed. 152 attacks were as a result of bombings of a multinational oil pipeline in Colombia .
The period of 1981 to 1984 worldwide terror attacks amounted to an average of 400 (in the year 2000 we find that there were 426 attacks.) .
Approximately 80% of all attacks have been directed at Business (accounting for 66%), government , diplomats and the military. 20% of attacks are targeted at what is described as ’other’.
In the year 2001 there were 355 attacks worldwide, 291 anti American and 191 of those took place in Latin America.
At time of publication the report declared 2689 Americans killed with a worldwide total figure of 3572. (The 2001 figures include the 9/11 attacks) . One hundred seventy-eight of the attacks were bombings against a multinational oil pipeline in Columbia constituting 51 % of the year’s total number of attacks.
In the year 2002 the worldwide number of attacks amounted to 198 and in total 727 people died as a result of those attacks. The reports show that out of the 727 people that were killed , 27 were American citizens .
In the year 2003 the worldwide number of attacks amounted to 208 and in total 625 people died . 82 attacks were considered to be anti American, of those 46 took place in Latin America and 11 in mid east . American deaths amounted to 35 as a result of those attacks.
In the year 2004 the worldwide number of attacks amounted to 651 attacks and in total 1907 people died. 64 attacks were directed American assets. 62 of the victims were American citizens . We are told for the first time that suicide attacks accounted for 3% of the attacks.
In 2005 a chronology of terror events was released by the National Counter Terrorism Center. The format of the report has been changed from those that of previous years. In the year 2005 the world wide number of incidents amounted to 11,111 and incidents resulting in death, injury, or kidnapping of at least one individual 8,016 (a minimum of 5,131 deaths is reported). Incidents resulting in the death of zero individuals out of the 11,111 attacks is 5,980. American deaths amounted to 56.
What do we learn from these figures ? We learn 2001 killing was a unique act in terms of a threat on American soil. We learn that in many cases the threat is as likely to be from Latin America as it is from the Mid East. What we learn is that American citizens are no more likely to die pre 2001 as they are post 2001 through acts of terrorism. We learn that the level of terrorism has increased with our interventions across the world. That is war creates unhappy individuals.
We learn that between 2001 and 2004 the number of worldwide deaths from all acts of terrorism is approximately 6600 , if we include the 2005 figures despite the changed format it amounts to approximately 11,700. That is out of a population of 6 billion people 11,700 people died as a result of terror attacks.
In the UK 3500 people died as a result of traffic accidents last year, this year and each year since 2001 , that’s 17,500 innocent people.
Israel since the onset of the second intifada has killed an estimated 4500 Palestinians, it has killed 1100 Lebanese in 34 days of war . In Iraq the latest independent survey estimates 128,000 deaths as a result of our war against WMDs, in Afghanistan it is estimated that upwards of 30, 000 individuals have been killed.
Last year 53 UK citizens died as a result of a terrorist act on British soil. 56 Americans have been killed worldwide.
Five years on and whilst we wallow in propaganda we have to aske whose world and whose values are under threat, and being brutally denied, ours or theirs ?
http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/pgtrpt/
I was working at a large IT consultancy in Tottenham Court road when my wife called the first time and said that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. I relayed this message to my nearest colleagues and we all went online to find out what was going on and you could see from the pictures that it couldn't have been a small plane. Then someone came into the office and said that the other tower had also been hit and that was confirmed a few seconds later when my wife called again. From that point on it was almost impossible to access the internet to get any more information. I think that in itself was terrifying.
What compounded my shock was the reaction of one of my colleagues who was born in the UK but had Pakistani parentage. He was smiling and happy. "It was about time", he said. "America was the great enemy" and "This is a great day". I was totally speechless, numb I guess. I didn't know how to respond. It still upsets me to think that I couldn't find the words, wasn't able to say something back. I know it wouldn't have changed his opinion or view of the world but it would have made me feel better.
Yes 9/11 was a devastating world event. Yes, thousahds died that day and many more in the resulting activity. But Yes it was 5 years ago and we've heard and re-heard the story so many times it no longer needs re-telling. It is old news. Once again the BBC provide the terrorists with the oxygen of publicity. Once again the BBC proves there is not enough real news to fill their extensive bulletins hence the need to trail what will happen later, tell us when its happening and then explain in minute detail what happened.
Move on - what about todays news!
My life changed forever that day. I was booked on an American Airlines flight from London to New Delhi for a holiday that was due to fly on September 13. That flight was cancelled.
I decided to go to Copenhagen for a 'long weekend' and it was there that I met my future wife, Tanja.
Yes, 9/11 changed my life forever.
Ian
Aberdeen
I was on holiday in Majorca on 9/11
i remember going upto the hotel room and seeing the tv images just after the first plane hit.
My heart sank, as a 16 yr old I visted the wtc some 15 yrs before nearly to the day when i went to see my relations,
it all came flooding back
my cousin telling me how fast the elevators travelled upto the observation level ,looking down on to the streets below seeing how small the yellow cabs & cars were, the helicopter flying below where i was standing i think heading for the pan am building . pictures of some guy who crossed the towers, being told about some man who climbed the tower with suction pads.and not being sure if it was true, feeling disapointed that the outside was closed that day
then after the second plane hit the horror of what those people faced that day , god help them i thought.
since i was 16 i have allways remebered that day.
im happy to have visited such a fantastic building and proud that some of the people who passed away on 9/11 probrably contributed in providing me with a wonderfull memory of a great building and wonderful city.
At about 3pm on 9/11 my wife and I with friends, were on holiday standing on a beach in North Cornwall. Several transatlantic airliners passed overhead heading west at about 12000 ft producing con-trails! Binoculars revealed that the trails were from the wing tips not the engines, they were all dumping fuel! Listening to Radio 5 a little later we realised that we had been watching a direct result of the aftermath of the tragedy that was unfolding in far off New York.