Posted on 09/12/2006 7:42:11 AM PDT by goalinestan
Just before sunset on Sept. 11, 2001, the worst day America has known, I snuck past police barricades and made my way to the roof of a high-rise building about eight blocks from ground zero - the closest I could get - and stared at the landscape of horror.
Smoke shrouded the 16-acre site. Twisted metal columns jutted from an enormous crater, all of it blanketed in white ash. The only flecks of color came from the yellow stripes on the coats of rescue workers.
Finally away from deadlines, it was supposed to be my moment to grieve. But I just stood there, my mind racing. Why did this happen?
It wasn't until 9 days later, on my day off, that I let pent- up emotions flow.
Images flashed in my mind. Dazed New Yorkers walking aimlessly, carrying photographs of missing loved ones. The woman with streaks of mascara on her face who told me her fiancé would be found. Groups of strangers standing around a TV propped on milk cartons on the sidewalk, shrieking in unison as they watched a replay of planes crashing into the towers.
On the first days, we thought survivors would be plucked out of the rubble alive. Throngs of reporters from all over the world stood outside hospital ER entrances, waiting for the miracle stories we all desperately wanted to hear.
We waited in vain. The miracles families prayed for never came.
People say 9-11 is the day America lost its innocence. To me, it was the beginning of a wake-up call. Terrorism was a problem over there. But this, the first major attack of civilians on U.S. soil, prompted us to start asking questions.
Why, indeed, did this happen?
For many of us, it sparked the beginning of our education on the collusion between government and multinational corporations.
On the surface it seemed that the federal government, under both the Clinton and Bush administrations, was asleep at the wheel - very much the way the Bush administration was when Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans.
Bush claimed we'd bring back Osama bin Laden "dead or alive."
But the more we learn about the ties between the Bush family and the bin Ladens, questions like this one pop up: Did Bush really want to capture him?
With fewer than 50 ground troops surrounding the massive Tora Bora region in the mountains of Afghanistan
where bin Laden was hiding, ground commanders pleaded for 800 more soldiers, according to Gary Berntsen, the CIA field commander whose book "Jawbreaker" goes into amazing detail about the botched paramilitary operation. Bernt- sen and other ground commanders said the U.S. let Osama bin Laden get away.
Was this because of President George Bush's close ties to the bin Laden family?
In 1978, Bush and Osama bin Laden's brother, Salem bin Laden, founded Arbusto Energy, an oil company based in Texas.
Several bin Laden family members invested millions in The Carlyle Group, a private global equity firm based in Washington, DC. The company's senior advisor was Bush's father, former President George H.W. Bush. After news of the bin Laden-Bush connection became public, the elder Bush stepped down from Carlyle.
Interestingly, on Sept. 11, 2001, members of the Carlyle Group - including Bush senior, and his former secretary of state, James Baker - were meeting at the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Washington, D.C., along with Shafiq bin Laden, another one of Osama bin Laden's brothers.
While all flights were halted following the terrorist attacks, there was one exception made: The White House authorized planes to pick up 140 Saudi nationals, including 24 members of the bin Laden family, living in various cities in the U.S. to bring them back to Saudi Arabia, where they would be safe. They were never interrogated.
Five years later, and we're still asking questions. We may have lost our innocence but we're also losing, thankfully, our ignorance.
My understanding is that the Bin Laden family has essentially disowned Usama and have condemned what he has done.
Right up there with the "no-planers".
Allowing this mentally challenged equal-opportunity hire to write a column negates all claims this newspaper has to being a legitimate news organ. She is so sorely lacking critical thinking skills, and yet they don't even have the sense or decency to be embarrassed. Suicide of Dinosaur Media alert.
You didn't ask questions after THE FIRST WTC bombing in 1993?
Ladies & Gentlemen, I give you the intellectually dishonest.
This is the same lady that makes O'Reilly all the time. She is a left winger of the highest order.
1978 - in that time frame, wasn't Osama an ally in the Afgahn war against Russia? My timeline might be off a bit.
This is where it starts going downhill...quickly... She's an idiot. I once wrote to her about a column she did on illegal immigration, asking her to defend why we should simply let people (from Mexico) come here with no strings attached, and her reply???
"We all share the same planet under one sky...it's not right to restrict those who want to share our country from doing so..."
She uses an old conspiracy type argument that has been put to rest years ago, to write this crap? Unbelievable what the Left is doing these days. Too bad the rest of the media leans in her direction, or she would be quickly outed as the idiot she is.
I'm not sure why I read her crap.
I guess it's like the wreck at the side of the road...you don't want to look, but somehow my eyes are drawn to the blazing stupidity that's on display week after week.
Ugh...
Sorry, took a little license with the name. It's actually the Denver Post. But the change seemed fitting in light of this mess of an editorial.
Big time...
First, we found no evidence that any flights of Saudi nationals, domestic or international, took place before the reopening of national airspace on the morning of September 13, 2001. To the contrary, every flight we have identified occurred after national airspace reopened.
Second, we found no evidence of political intervention. We found no evidence that anyone at the White House above the level of [National Security Council official] Richard Clarke participated in a decision on the departure of Saudi nationals ... The President and Vice President told us they were not aware of the issue at all until it surfaced much later in the media. None of the officials we interviewed recalled any intervention or direction on this matter from any political appointee.
Third, we believe that the FBI conducted a satisfactory screening of Saudi nationals who left the United State on charter flights. The Saudi government was advised of and agree to the FBI's requirements that passengers be identified and checked against various databases before the flights departed. The Federal Aviation Administration representative working in the FBI operations center made sure that the FBI was aware of the flights of Saudi nationals and was able to screen the passengers before they were allowed to depart. The FBI interviewed all persons of interest on these flights prior to their departures. They concluded that none of the passengers was connected to the 9/11 attacks and have since found no evidence to change that conclusion. Our own independent review of the Saudi nationals involved confirms that no one with known links to terrorism departed on these flights.
Would love a link I can send to Cindy (not Sheehan, but no less of a moonbat) Rodriguez.
Thanks!
Teehee, humor not lost on me. We've all been known to make a typo here and there. ;o)
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Would love a link I can send to Cindy (not Sheehan, but no less of a moonbat) Rodriguez.
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I just emailed her myself. Gave her the 9/11 Report and the bit about Geore Soros.
Liberals are just plain D-U-M-B !!!
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