Still empty after all these years: Last week's plot shows why it is vital to rebuild the World Trade Center site as fast as possible. Photo: Luiz C. Ribeiro
Posted on 08/15/2006 8:00:16 PM PDT by neverdem
LAST Thursday's news that British intelligence had uncovered a plot to blow up as many as 10 American airliners over the North Atlantic points up rule No.1 in the battle against ruthless, patient Islamist terrorists: Prevention is paramount. But, unfortunately, the news also underscores why it was so important for New York to rebuild Ground Zero quickly after 9/11.
The terror plot's unveiling shows that the tools the West has relied on since 9/11, including scouring terror suspects' banking records, are vital. For example: The Brits have tracked the suspects' financial dealings, including money transfers from Pakistan, through surveillance of their bank accounts. America has similar financial-tracking powers under the 2001 Patriot Act.
It's also comforting that NYPD intelligence officials, working with their British counterparts, were aware of the threat long before any of us knew about it and are working with information from British intelligence to root out any plotters in the United States.
But the details of the uncovered plot are also a stark reminder of what New York already knows: Al Qaeda and its sympathizers still want to hit America's economy as hard as they can, just as they did on 9/11. That means, inevitably, plotting to hit New York - the heart of America's financial industry and one of the pillars of its entertainment industry.
Plus, the scale of the airline plot shows that the Islamist terrorists also want to ensure that their next attack meets or surpasses 9/11 in its economic impact and human carnage.
New York is doing all it can to prevent such an attack (and could use more funding from the Department of Homeland Security). But, still - al Qaeda need succeed only once.
That's part of why it was so important for New York to rebuild Ground Zero as quickly as...
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
I have a bunch of recent (3 mo. old) pictures of the site from a variety of angles, if anyone wants to see them. It's a disgrace that the towers aren't already rebuilt, never mind the abomination that they plan to place there.
Post them if you don't mind.
I'd like to see them....and pass them to others....thanks.
Graphic: Foreign-Born Population P.S. Enlarge the graphic to read it.
Census Bureau's American Community Survey (census.gov)
Book finds plenty to rip Rudy for on 9/11
Politicial ad pairs Clinton, bin Laden
FReepmail me if you want on or off my New York ping list.
America has similar financial-tracking powers under the 2001 Patriot Act.
There are too many cooks and too many people with conflicting interests. We would need one of the Rockefeller boys to get back into power to do this job.
There's a great book on the building of the Twin Towers, Divided We Stand, more on the politics and culture of building them and it's from an New Urbanist/Liberal perspective but he hits many conservative views. What we have to remember nobody really liked the twin towers for about 20 years. They looked dull, they were out of place in lower manhattan. It really came into it's own when it started having the farmer's market, afternoon and evening shows and concerts.
So as not to spam the thread with high-resolution pictures, here are the links with explanation. These were taken in the last week of April this year. The pictures in order are taken from positions progressively clockwise around the site.
1) Approaching the NE corner of the WTC site from the north:
http://aycu07.webshots.com/image/2606/2005916107165754670_fs.jpg
2) Same position, looking west:
http://aycu09.webshots.com/image/2608/2005916136891376247_fs.jpg
3) Along the northern edge of the site, looking south:
http://aycu06.webshots.com/image/3445/2005985794844523770_fs.jpg
4) NW corner, facing SE:
http://aycu03.webshots.com/image/1162/2005994041751790204_fs.jpg
5) SW corner, facing north:
http://aycu14.webshots.com/image/3213/2005937861130965093_fs.jpg
6) East side, facing west:
http://aycu35.webshots.com/image/114/2005974260697628990_fs.jpg
Thanks for the work and links!
It was no work at all. I have a deep emotional connection to that site. As a teenager I used to walk downtown with my friends and stroll through the empty corridors of the trade center and the financial center attached to it. In 1993 I was working on the 49th floor of Tower 2 when it was bombed. On 9/11/2001 I should have been in a train directly underneath it at about the time the first plane hit, but I was late getting out of the house that day. My sister worked on the 86th floor of Tower 1 at the time. If her workday did not start at 10am she would have been lost to me. At the time of 9/11 I lived right across the river in an apartment where if I looked out my window, the WTC buildings were the centerpiece. Until one day there were no buildings, just a plume of smoke that burned and burned and burned for weeks. To compound all these connections to the site was the symbolic understanding of the towers that all New Yorkers shared.
Bill Clinton's total coverup of the 1993 bombing led me to ask a lot of questions that eventually led, in 1998, to me finding this site and marching along with the others that could go, down to DC to demand his impeachment. The rest is history.
THANKS.....what was the black signboard? Names of those who died there??
Yep
It's hardly original to me, feel free to propogate the idea. We'll all have to come around to it sooner or later, and the sooner we do the more of our people will be spared.
Did you see the Spike Lee film 25th Hour with Edward Norton?
The part in particular that your post made me think of was when Philip Seymore Hoffman and Barry Pepper are in Pepper's apartment overlooking the hole that was the WTC, talking about how Monty's dead to them, etc etc. Interspersed with shots of WTC crews removing rubble and debris street-level below, it was really creepy.
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