Twenty Years After 9/11

W.J. Astore

When the first hijacked plane hit the World Trade Center on 9/11/2001, I was at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs.  I was in my car, listening to the radio, just outside the North Gate, where a B-52 sits on static display as a symbol of American power. The first reports suggested it was an accident, but it soon became apparent it was a deliberate act.  As a second and then a third plane hit the WTC and the Pentagon, I remember hearing speculation that 9/11 could have a higher death toll than the Battle of Antietam, the single bloodiest day of the U.S. Civil War.  It was bad enough, if not that bad.

I remember confusion and chaos in the government, and the use of the word “folks” by President George W. Bush to describe the hijackers.  Very quickly, his rhetoric changed, and soon America would be launched on a global crusade against terrorists and other evildoers.

The flags came out and America came together, but that team spirit, so to speak, was quickly seized upon and exploited by Bush/Cheney to justify war anywhere and everywhere.  Good will was squandered and wise counsel was rejected in a calculated plot for power-projection disguised as righteous vengeance. Sweep everything up, related and unrelated, go big: those were the sentiments of Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, and crew.  They had failed so badly at protecting America on 9/11; they were not going to fail to use 9/11 for their own nefarious purposes.

And now, 20 years later, we’re witnessing how badly their hubris and dishonesty have damaged democracy in America, as well as damaging or destroying millions of lives around the globe.

After finishing my tour at the AF Academy in 2002, I became the Dean of Students at the Defense Language Institute at the Presidio of Monterey. I wonder how many of “my” young troops who so proudly crossed the stage with newly acquired language skills in Pashto and Dari and Arabic never made it home from Bush and Cheney’s GWOT, their “global war on terror.”

9/11 remains a traumatic day for America. It’s a day we remember where we were and what we were doing when we first learned of this horrific attack on our country. However briefly, 9/11 brought America together, but militarism and constant warfare along with prejudice and ignorance have served only to weaken our democracy while impoverishing our country.

This madness was on my mind as I recently re-watched “The City on the Edge of Forever,” a classic Star Trek episode in which history’s changed when Dr. McCoy travels back in time to 1930s America.  Here he saves the life of Edith Keeler, a social activist who, in an alternate timeline, delays U.S. entry into World War II, which allows the Nazis to develop the atomic bomb first, thereby winning the war.  Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock learn they must prevent McCoy from saving Keeler, which is complicated by the fact that Kirk falls hard for her.  She’s a visionary who speaks of space travel and a better world.  As Kirk courts her, Keeler says she dreams of a future in which all the money currently spent on war and death … and Kirk completes her thought by saying that that money will be spent instead on life.  Kindred spirits they are, Kirk and Keeler, yet to restore history to its proper place, he must let her die.

Joan Collins as Edith Keeler and William Shatner as Captain Kirk: Reaching for the stars

Keeler’s dream of peace – of all the trillions of dollars spent on weapons and war and death being instead spent on life – is the proper one, the right one, even as it was tragically premature.  For this she must die, forgotten to history, a bit player remembered only for running a small neighborhood mission for those with nowhere else to go.

I’ve always been attracted to science fiction and to plots both utopian, or at least hopeful, and dystopian.  But in the dystopia in which we increasingly find ourselves today, we need hopeful visions.  We need Edith Keelers.  But to use Star Trek-speak again, what I see issuing from the U.S. government is far more consistent with a Klingon Empire driven by war than a peaceful and life-affirming “federation” of planets.  The U.S. empire is not about to go quietly, nor will it go peacefully.

It’s time for a new course, a far less bellicose one, but a no less determined one, where Americans look within rather than without. Echoing Edith Keeler, let’s spend our money and resources on life, not death, love, not war. Let’s try that for the next 20 years. If we do, I bet we’ll be a lot better off in 2041 than we are today.

55 thoughts on “Twenty Years After 9/11”

  1. This documentary by US News Anchor Tom Brokaw is about the People of Gander, Newfoundland on 9/11, when 7000 unexpected strangers showed up at the door.
    I never saw it before, and as a Canadian, it brought tears to my eyes.

    I was doing my Courier deliveries in CanaDa’s Capital, Ottawa. I heard it as a News Bulletin on my radio. I was stunned, as was everyone else, at every place on my delivery route.
    All I could say to everyone that Day was these words, “The World as we knew it, ended Today!”

    The Christ of God said, ‘Call no man on Earth your Father, for we have One Father in Heaven.’
    That’s such a big idea and Vision even the Churches don’t preach it these Days, as this Material World appears to be going in the Opposite Direction.

    Watching this video has expanded the Vision I had gandered many years ago.
    CanaDa is the only other Place in God’s Whole Earth, whose founding struggle is rooted on the Historical Plains of Abraham over here, while Jews and Palestinians are still at War for the Old World Plains of Abraham over there.
    If the Gander Spirit spread to the rest of the Country, CanaDa could be the antidote, seeing Americans appear to be heading to an unholy, uncivil War of American Carnage.

    Liked by 3 people

  2. As in JFK’s being murdered that fateful day in Dallas of 63, and seeing my Principal openly sobbing as us Kids were released my first indelible American tragic memory. I also remember vividly where I was on 9-11, with my oldest Daughter Leah at Brockton Hosp. for an Appt.. We saw the Planes hit the Towers in the waiting Rm. Even the Doctor’s & Nurses came out to watch. Needless to say it was awful, and I as a Ret. Firefighter knew that all of my Brother’s inside were lost…Then watching it over and over when home again that night. We got back home in time for my youngest daughter’s Release from School. I remember also all the Patriotism– Giant Flags on Trucks etc. All Air Traffic was prohibited, and rerouted to my Wife’s relatives land of Newfoundland so it was surreal when I heard and saw a couple of F-15’s. out of Otis Air Force Base, Ma. patrolling the Sky’s overhead… It was one of the longest days I ever had. When I heard of Flt. 93 and their heroics I again felt proud to be an American, and that we surely weren’t defeated. Twenty yrs… And, so it goes.

    Liked by 3 people

    1. I was a 19 year old labourer for The Foundation Company of CanaDa on The Distant Early Warning Line (DEW Line) when Kennedy was Assassinated.
      It was long before spy satellites, and the 1st Line of Radar Warning of a surprise Soviet bomber attack over the North Pole.
      There were no telephones, TV, or Radio. Old Newspapers and magazines were brought in by the plane coming in with supplies every month. We had about 4 hours of Twilight. There was no place to spend the money so the savings grew.

      The labourers slept in tent dormitories, and if you had to go to the toilet, you had to get dressed and use the 2 seater outhouse with an oil burning stove.

      I’ll never forget a heavily accented Displaced Person as immigrants were called in those Days shout “The Presidente, the Presidente is shot!” That’s all the News the labourers could get. The Military knew what was going on. I took the next plane out.

      The foundation is laid, but the Warning Line is no longer Distant and it’s getting Late.

      Liked by 1 person

  3. All Day long, every Day for Days, the MASS Media repeated over and over again, the Trade Towers were brought down in a free fall by the fire on the 90th floor. That’s what we saw.

    I was not aware on 9/11, 3 influential, powerful Americans, colluded to write the following in Foreign Affairs Magazine 3 years earlier.

    In December 1998, Former US Defence Secretary Ash Carter, US Undersecretary of Defence John Deutch and Philip Zelikow, Executive Director of the 9/11 Commission, colluded to write this in Foreign Affairs Journal,
    A successful attack with weapons of mass destruction could certainly take thousands, or tens of thousands, of lives. If the device that exploded in 1993 under the World Trade Center had been nuclear, or had effectively dispersed a deadly pathogen, the resulting horror and chaos would have exceeded our ability to describe it.

    Such an act of catastrophic terrorism would be a watershed event in American history. It could involve loss of life and property unprecedented in peacetime and undermine America’s fundamental sense of security, as did the Soviet atomic bomb test in 1949.

    Like Pearl Harbor, this event would divide our past and future into a before and after. The United States might respond with draconian measures, scaling back civil liberties, allowing wider surveillance of citizens, detention of suspects, and use of deadly force. More violence could follow, either further terrorist attacks or U.S. counterattacks.

    I find it curious it happened just like that 3 years later, and one of the Authors was able to control what information the 9/11 Commission was able to see?

    I urge watching this 48 minute Documentary on the work done by a renowned Forensic Scientist Dr. Judy Wood on the “collapse” of the Towers on 9/11at the bottom of the link.

    She claims what happened on 9/11 was the demonstration of unlimited Free Energy, that while used for malevolent purposes on 9/11, the potential of that technology could move the Nations to beat their swords into plow shares and their spears into pruning hooks and the Nations would have no need for War any more.

    THE REVELATION OF JESUS CHRIST: From 19/11 to 9/11

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  4. My cousin Capt Katy Mazza died when the towers collapsed. As the war drums beat I called my congressman’s office to state that I was against going to war in Afghanistan. My reasoning was simple.

    Observations:
    War was not going to bring my cousin back, nor any of the other people who had died.
    War was going to kill people who had nothing to do with killing my cousin, i.e. they were innocent.
    The mastermind of the attack and most of the perpetrators were Saudi. It did not make much sense to me to attack Afghanistan when the attackers were not Afghans.
    My understanding is that the ideology behind the 9/11 attack was Wahhabism, which is one of the most extremely violent sects of Islam. Its origin was in Saudi Arabia and my impression is that Saudis fund a lot of madrassas in which extremist teachers preach and recruit for global jihad. The Taliban were essentially Pashtun nationalists and not interested in global jihad. Hence they were not the real enemy and could probably have been negotiated with.

    Liked by 4 people

  6. I was reflecting on the Star Trek episode and while Keeler’s vision was of peace, in the episode she had to die in order to stave off Nazi victory. That struck me as open to the interpretation that advocating for peace leads to terrible outcomes.

    I am not familiar with the details of the episode, but the story line is that a peace movement in the US delayed our entry into the war against the Axis powers, thus allowing Hitler to build atomic weapons and win WWII. Thus peace movements are dangerous and subvert military actions that prevent the evil people from winning. Therefore society is better off without peace activists.

    This is nonsense. War is quite unpredictable and there is no guarantee that Hitler would have won the war even with a few A-bombs. First of all, Allied air power had far more destructive potential, Dresden, Hamburg, and Tokyo all had similar or higher death counts. The Germans had no long range bombers and the launching site for their rockets may well have fallen to the Allies by the time they had atomic weapons, or been destroyed after the first such weapon was launched. A few atomic weapons would not have made a difference on the battlefield. They would have served only as terror weapons and there is no guarantee the Allies would have succumbed to that. The English didn’t during the air raids on London. The Germans didn’t yield after Dresden and other cities were reduced to cinders by fire tornados. The Japanese still wanted to keep fighting even after Hiroshima and Nagasaki. So I dispute the story’s conclusion.

    I have seen a lot of pieces that express the sentiment that peace activists are dangerous because they reduce the country’s will to fight. That sentiment is very dangerous as it equates peace with vulnerability.

    I have also seen the Afghanistan war justified because there have been no major terrorist attacks from foreign elements since the war started. By that logic it makes sense to throw virgins into a volcano to prevent the next eruption. Yep, feeding the volcano god every month and no eruption for the last 20 years. See, it must be working.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Good point about peace activism being denigrated. In a similar way, in the old movie version of War of the Worlds, if I recall correctly there is a scene where a priest walks out by himself toward the Martian war machines hoping to bring them to stop their bad behavior. He is, of course, zapped. The message: what a fool!

      Liked by 1 person

      1. Yes, I’d say the priest example is different. He was blinded by faith, waving a cross as a weapon, and got zapped.

        Perhaps he was a fool, but he did have guts.

        Liked by 3 people

          1. The notion of a Christian Soldier was inspired by these verses in the Book.

            Put on the whole armour of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.
            For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

            Wherefore put on the whole Armour of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.
            Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with Truth, and having on the Breastplate of Righteousness;
            And your feet shod with the preparation of the Gospel of Peace;
            Above all, taking the Shield of Faith, wherewith you shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.
            And take the Helmet of Salvation, and the Sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God:
            Ephesians 6:11-17

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    2. Virgins and volcanos — perfect comparison, JPA.

      The “Star Trek” plot is plausible, I think. Imagine a powerful peace movement that moderates U.S. foreign policy toward Japan. There would be no Pearl Harbor and no powerful U.S. drive for war. Without U.S. support, Britain may have fallen to the Nazis. Without American lend lease, perhaps the Soviet Union sues for peace. Meanwhile, the Germans pursue V2 rockets and atomic weapons and succeed in marrying the two. History is thus changed and the “Enterprise” and its intrepid crew will never exist.

      Not convincing, by any means. But plausible.

      Edith Keeler is portrayed as a person far ahead of her time, not as a “dangerous” peace activist but as a tragic one. She is portrayed as what we all should be: helpful, loving, compassionate, but also no pushover. If you haven’t watched it, check out the episode. It’s one of “Star Trek’s” best.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. Thanks for clarifying about the episode. I realized I was going out on a limb without having seen it. I should have just gone right to the volcano metaphor.

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  7. I was working in the building next to the Celebrezze Federal Building in Cleveland on 9/11. As the Federal Building was considered a target, both it and our building were evacuated. There were early reports of a credible bomb threat at the Federal Building, but they disappeared immediately from the news coverage. It was a long bus ride home, as all the busses were packed with fleeing, shocked office workers. People talked across the aisle in low voices, which was unusual, as riders normally kept strictly to themselves. As each person got to his or her stop, the rest of the riders said good-bye, godspeed, things like that. It was oddly as if the whole of us diminished as each person ieft. I got home, sat down, and my first thought was, “Bush did this. I don’t know how, but he’s responsible. This didn’t happen out of the blue; the government was complicit in some way.” I still believe that.

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    1. Well, Bush was responsible. He ignored a credible warning about OBL and al Qaeda being determined to strike the U.S. This devastating attack happened on his watch. The buck stops with the president, yet Bush/Cheney avoided all responsibility and culpability for their incompetence. They both got reelected in 2004, which goes to show you just how incompetent the Democrats and DNC were (and continue to be).

      Liked by 2 people

      2. I have wondered more than once that if the Supreme Court had not stopped the Florida recount, would Al Gore had been President? If so, would the experience he had from the previous 8 years made it more likely that the hijacking plot would have been broken or intercepted? I ask this question on the basis of an administrations focus, or emphasis if you will. By the year 2000 I believe the Clinton Administration took Al Qaeda seriously. The Bush administration was more fixated on canceling an ABM treaty, and reflexively downplayed anything the previous Administration thought important. Ergo, anything Al Qaeda and the associated idea of a strong domestic threat of a terrorist attack was on the back burner with the incoming administration. (I base a fair amount of this on the book by Richard Clarke, Against All enemies…I know, “God save me from the man who has read one book”. The rest is just my own speculation without any real knowledge to underpin it)
        Anyway, 9/11 happened, and America started to bite everything it could. Itself as well.

        Liked by 1 person

  8. Just yesterday I was visiting a friend and I made the remark that the attack on Afghanistan was a big mistake that killed many people pointlessly and pointless too is drone assassination. She responded that at least it keeps the bad guys from bringing terror to America. I then pointed out that she and I could plot some terrible plan right there in her backyard as could anyone anywhere on the planet, that it was nonsense to believe anything was accomplished by attacking Afghanistan other than to create more people infuriated with the US. She then changed the topic.

    There will never be another commercial airplane attack like 9/11 simply because cockpits are now secured against any entry during a flight. That, not the attack on Afghanistan, prevented a repeat of the act of 9/11. However, the rage for revenge with a helpless target right there for the taking made it all but impossible to avoid what the boy President did. A great President would have made the attempt to talk the American people down from fear and rage, but as you mention GWB was surrounded by those who saw opportunity in 9/11 and they carried the day. I wish that as with Star Trek we could turn back the clock to forgo that opportunity to lash out.

    There was a remark made that was epic in foolishness and and example of upside down logic, but I have forgotten who said it. It was to ask what good is the mighty US military if it isn’t used? We now have the answer that should have been clear and that is there IS no good purpose for the mighty US military and it has been a terrible error to dismiss diplomacy for the sword.

    Liked by 3 people

    1. I get angry when I hear Americans defend drone assassination because it saves American lives. Drone missiles kill more innocent people not just terrorists. Even if 3000 Americans were killed every year the risk per year would be 1/100,000. The risk of being killed in an accident is 10 times greater. Perhaps we should launch Hellfire missiles at cars that are driving unsafely. I’m sure she would be upset if the police blew up her kid’s car it ran a stop sign. Got to protect the public though.

      aMEricans seem incapable of grasping that if they accept the morality of causing “collateral damage” to reduce risks to themselves, then other groups will use that morality to justify killing Americans. Its called “blowback” or rephrasing the grammar of the Golden Rule:

      Avoid doing unto others what you would not want them to do to you … because eventually they will.

      Here’s an article about the message drone strikes send, courtesy of The Onion. Its tone is in the same vein as Jonathon Swift’s “A Modest Proposal”
      https://www.theonion.com/u-s-airstrike-sends-tough-message-to-4-year-old-afghan-1847585847

      Liked by 3 people

      3. My question is always, “Exactly which ‘American lives’ are being saved?”
        An impassioned if vague reference to 9/11 – which I have long since grown tired of hearing – doesn’t cut it.

        Liked by 2 people

    2. I hate this time of year, with all the talk of ‘9/11’. Whatever happened to the first ‘9/11’, where the democratically-elected government of Chile was overthrown by a fascist dictator with the full support and assistance from the government of…the USA?!!

      Still, I’m not sure how many people would care to be reminded of this.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. A good point. I remember Allende being overthrown. Yet another American foreign policy disaster; it certainly was for the Chilean people.

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  10. Really good point about Gore, Wornsmooth. If memory serves (and I could be letting my bias toward him persuade me), Gore had been particularly concerned about Al-Qaeda, more so than Clinton. We could be living in a different world, had he fought harder to sit in the Oval Office.

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    1. Trump goes on and on about an election being stolen. He should study the Bush/Gore Florida monkey business that really did steal one.

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  12. ‘On 9/11, It’s Time for a Reckoning and Reflection of Decades of Failed U.S. National Security Policy’

    Our calamitous misadventures in the Middle East and the global financial collapse of 2008 dramatically exposed the bankruptcy and failures of the bipartisan establishment consensus. Yet while citizen movements have begun to transform domestic politics, they have been virtually invisible when it comes to foreign policy. It is time, as we mark the 20th anniversary of 9/11, to challenge what has been a remarkably narrow debate in this arena.

    One widely touted hope was that, after Trump, the United States might return to its previous role as “the indispensable nation.” We should not fall for it.
    Our national security policies failed Americans long before Trump. The failures are particularly manifest in our wars without end, exemplified by the debacle in Afghanistan, which President Biden was right to finally exit from, albeit in the war’s 20th year.
    The global war on terror, however, continues and generates more terrorists than it kills. The official National Security Strategy (NSS) statements of the Bush, Obama, and Trump administrations all committed the United States to maintaining a military so powerful that it cannot be challenged anywhere.
    The last NSS statement from the Trump administration declared that “revisionist powers” (Russia and China), not terrorists, were the major threat to our national security……………..

    https://portside.org/2021-09-09/911-its-time-reckoning-and-reflection-decades-failed-us-national-security-policy

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  14. Pingback: Somebody Dial 911 – Ponderments

          2. Thank you for the link.
            It is wonderful. Your word poignant captures it.
            Wonderful article Denise. (or does one say essay…what are blog articles properly called?)

            Liked by 1 person

  17. Excellent article regarding the tragedy of 9-11-01 Denise. I find this quote is especially important:
    “Instead of looking at U.S. actions that served as a flashpoint for the attack, we backed a President who stoked the fires of rage, accompanied by a cabal who saw its chance to implement long-plotted schemes of dominance and control. ”

    I find it amazing that no one has ever asked the question: Why did these young, Arab men choose to die as they did? Why did they choose the World Trade Center as their targets? ( It is obvious why they chose the Pentagon ).

    As I posted in an earlier column, one of the Taliban told me why they hate America and Americans. 1. Godlessness 2. Materialism 3. Disrespect for Islam.

    During my time with the mujahideen in 1987 I was respected because I was a person of ‘the Book’. The Book is the Bible. Muslims respect the old and new testaments as precursors to the final book which is the Koran.

    I do not want to make this post into a thousand word essay, but will encourage the readers to research Islam, U.S. involvement in Muslim countries, and whether we are actually a Christian nation.

    Thanks again Denise for a thought provoking article.

    Liked by 3 people

    1. Thank you for your compliments, William.

      To form a blanket response to your comments, I think there are many, many questions the U.S. has failed to ask itself in the last 20 years, mostly because it never occurs to us to ask them. We already think we know it all, and if other cultures have different perspectives, well….it’s because they’re godless heathens, and we need not pay attention to them. We never learn.

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  18. I subscribe to Bill’s Blog because I recognize he is commitment to the same Cause I am.
    While here, I encountered Denise Donaldson, who shares that commitment in common. Also, Denise has been the most supportive of my commentaries in discussion.

    Now Denise has her own Blog I subscribe to, and I didn’t know where I should post my comment 1st? What a wasted concern! I’ll post it on her Blog too. We are all of the One Spirit in our Common Cause. Now Denise will reach people Bill and I don’t reach, and that’s good!
    The Spirit is not limited by Borders and Walls.

    As for 9/11, a few readers shared their thoughts and emotions from their unique perspective of 9/11, the biggest shock to the world since WWII, and I could feel the passion and emotion in the experience and perspective in Denise’s words.

    I just came across the experience of Edward Snowden on 9/11, the Criminal Fugitive from US Injustice.
    He informed Americans and the World, the US Agency NSA, has the capability to store all the phone calls, email, text or Message anybody and everybody ever sent or received, and if anyone comes to their attention, they can call up the communications of that Person of Interest and anyone they communicated with.

    What could be read in how he describes the Psychological, Emotional and Spiritual effects 9/11 unleashed in him that Day, ant the Fugitive he is now.
    It’s a teaser, being only pages 9-12 in his Book, but there is no doubt it is inspired by the same Spirit that motivates me, and has Common Cause with all of us.

    https://edwardsnowden.substack.com/p/9-12

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    1. Ray Joseph,
      This is a bit late and probably will get lost in blog cycle.
      (WJ I hope you don’t mind me using your blog for the query.)
      I was exposed to a fair amount of Christian religion training as a child. Both Roman Catholic and Protestant Lutheran. Both of the institutionalized version. Though vehemently anti-communist and hence nationalist in that sense, I do not remember any church or school leadership celebrating violence and killing in the name of the Flag as seems so prevalent today. I do not recall being taught to hate or even fear “the other”. At worst there was a condensation for their” misguided beliefs and ignorance”, but none of this kill ’em all mentality.
      From your posts I gather you are well read of the Bible and it has deep influence and guidance towards your views on peace, war, and how we should treat this world and the people we share it with. Your world view comes across as humane and pacific. They reflect the basic message of Love.
      My question to you…. why do so many prominent christian leaders/clergymen/followers preach the opposite? When and where did all this hate and willingness, nay enthusiasm, for killing others? depriving the poor? celebrating base selfishness, etc come from? I truly don’t get it.

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      1. I appreciate your comment Wornsmooth.

        Christ taught then, and now, you cannot serve God and money at the same Time. That’s a fair dividing line according to everyone’s financial capabilities, from the richest to the poorest.

        In the Time of the Revelation of Jesus Christ, these Days in this Year of the Lord Jesus Christ 2021, this is the Spirit of the letter in Revelation 3:14-22,
        These things say the Amen, the Faithful and True witness, the Beginning of the Creation of God;
        I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot: I would you were cold or hot.
        So then because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew you out of my mouth.

        Because you say, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and know not that you are wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked:
        I counsel you to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that you may be rich; and white raiment, that you may be clothed, and that the shame of your nakedness do not appear; and anoint your eyes with eye salve, that you may see.
        As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent.
        Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.

        To him that overcomes, will I grant to SIT WITH ME in MY throne, even as I ALSO OVERCAME, and AM set down with my Father in his throne.

        For those who take the Bible literally, there could be a lot of Humans sitting in that throne. It certainly describes a Level Playing Field the likes of which this World has not seen – YET!

        American Christian Leaders live the lifestyle of the rich and famous, with the latest status symbol being luxury private jets so they don’t even have to mingle with the sheeple paying for their lifestyles.
        They like being the Religious Establishment these Days with all the perks and benefits.
        Contrary to Christ’s teaching, Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust does corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal:
        But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal:
        For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

        The Religious Establishment, as in the Time when Jesus walked through Occupied Palestine, wants their treasure on Earth.

        They all preach this World has arrived at THE LAST DAYS, but they don’t recognize these LAST DAYS, are the same LAST DAYS the Apostle James foretold almost 2000 years ago,
        Go to now, you rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you.
        Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth eaten.
        Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. You have heaped treasure together for THE LAST DAYS.

        Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by FRAUD, cries: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord Almighty………….
        James 5

        Few Establishment churches dare challenge this World’s existing Pyramid system of an Oligarchic Plutocracy at the top getting richer, with the growing masses of poor increase at the bottom.
        As if Christ didn’t know what he was talking about when he recognized the reality, ‘hardly ever will a rich man enter the kingdom of heaven’ as they accumulate money way beyond any Human need other than vanity.
        Christ does not exclude the rich from Redemption.

        I see this World Pyramid System as the inverse Pyramid on it’s tip ready to topple over in the Star of David, more People are beginning to see shaping up on the horizon with the Signs of the Times.

        That doesn’t matter because they can’t stop the march of Time. What the Apostle James wrote about so long ago, is only now being recognized and discussed these Days as “Economic Inequality.”

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  20. I remember thinking shortly after 9/11 what a remarkable attack this was. An attack that could and should be studied with out the emotion.

    Suicide by aircraft was not new. The Japanese in WW 2 convinced the Kamikaze pilots that the righteousness of the Cause demanded their certain deaths. Hisao Horiyama is one of the few surviving Kamikaze pilots. At the time, he was a 21-year-old airmen caught in a faltering war. Horiyama has said, “We didn’t think too much about dying. We were trained to suppress our emotions. Even if we were to die, we knew it was for a worthy cause. Dying was the ultimate fulfillment of our duty, and we were commanded not to return. We knew that if we returned alive that our superiors would be angry.

    As for why his duty insisted he volunteer, he added, “At that time, we believed that the emperor and nation of Japan were one and the same.” Ultimately, the war was over before Horiyama was sent into battle as a Kamikaze pilot.

    Plane hijackings went back into the 1960’s. There were suicide bombers also who strapped explosives to themselves.

    What Bin Laden was able to do was find those who believed in the Cause and were willing to die for it. Also there was the planning in terms of training some to be “pilots”. The team had to fit in and not bring undue attention to themselves here in the USA. Then the careful study and analysis of Airport and Airline protocols to discover the weaknesses.

    Not sure what you call 9/11 from Bin Laden’s perspective. A precise commando operation in sense, except none of the “commandos” were expected to return.

    No wonder the US Security Apparatus was taken by surprise. A plane hijacking or the lone suicide bomber could be expected. The complexity of 9/11 was off the charts.

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    1. Clearly, we underestimated the opponent while overestimating our intelligence. Truly a fundamental mistake. Heads should have rolled, at least figuratively. But the only people punished were the honest whistleblowers, at least in the U.S. Plenty of people, mostly innocents, were punished overseas.

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  21. Bush the Younger made in clear there was going to be a response to 9/11 with all the military weapons we had at our our disposal. Pakistan better get out of the way. Instead of a precise surgical hunt for Bin Laden, it was decided the Taliban had to go and then we found War Lords and Drug Lords to be our allies. A puppet suitable to display to the world was located as proof we could not only tear the Taliban to pieces but present the liberating face of America to the world. I guess we were hoping for a Konrad Adenauer or a Willy Brandt.

    I was at the time working for a large multi-national commercial lines property-liability company, we also provided Worker’s Compensation Coverage. After 9/11 there was the great fear of mass destruction and casualties if there were more attacks. Each major city had a list of big targets and the worry was how much in terms of dollars were at risk from further attacks by our customers in those buildings. Eventually, a Terrorism charge was added to the premiums we charged as fund for future attacks.

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    1. The irony is heavy, ML. Bin Laden did provide a proximate cause for the U.S. to rain down hell on Iraq and Afghanistan in pursuit of him and his organization, BUT he succeeded beyond belief in terrorizing and demoralizing the U.S. into squandering vast sums of money in multitudes of useless ways.

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