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Rising with the smoke of 9/11 By Michael J. Thompson State and Local Editor September 12, 2003 Two years ago on September 11, I stared in disbelief at the television watching two towers come crashing down. On that fateful Tuesday morning it became clear to me what was unfolding. I had been taught in high school and in my first month at college that multiculturalism was one of America's greatest attributes and strengths, yet this conflicted with what the billowing smoke over the Big Apple skyline was telling me. The lies I had been taught died hard that day, as...

Men without chests My subject today is "two years after" the events of Sept. 11th, 2001; a common enough subject in the media this last week. But like a Rotary Club speaker, I'm going to begin with an anecdote. The connection between this anecdote, and great historical events, may not at first seem obvious to my reader. So I shall end by trying to explain the connexion. Some moments before sitting down to write this, I was walking the streets, musing on what to say. I emerged from a Tim Horton's, carrying a wax cup of scalding hot, agreeably mediocre...

SOME HUMAN bones and bits of muscle were found in New York City last Monday. They were on a scaffold a block south of Ground Zero, the local newspapers reported just two days before the second anniversary of Sept. 11. The force of the explosion from one of the airliners piercing the World Trade Center must have pitched this poor soul’s body parts the distance of an entire New York City block. His remains went unnoticed for almost two years on a construction site erected before the terrorist attack that killed 3,015 other innocent people like him. The discovery a...

Granted, it may be presumptuous to take on the worry of how well President George W. Bush is handling the war in Iraq. But worry I do - especially when the usual suspects on the Democratic disinformation steamroller make try to mislead Americans about the leadership capabilities of our president. On Sept. 11, 2001, this nation was attacked by men dedicated to our destruction. The day after that, just as Presidents Reagan and Clinton had done in the past after brushes with terrorism, President Bush made an emotional commitment to the American people: The attack by our enemies would not...

DELRAY BEACH -- Two years after the deadliest attack on American soil, one question has never been answered: What were at least 14 of 19 terrorists doing in South Florida - at least 12 of them in Palm Beach County - for perhaps a year or more before killing some 3,000 people on Sept. 11, 2001? Bob Graham and Porter Goss want to know more. The U.S. senator and Democratic presidential candidate and his colleague, a Republican congressman from southwest Florida, weren't satisfied that a 900-page congressional report issued in July has only a single mention relating to what federal...

Karachi THE arrests of Pakistani military officers possibly linked to former Taliban and al-Qaeda operatives just before the second anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks are the first visible signs of latent support for extremists within the country’s military. The officers hailed mostly from the Northwest Frontier Province, a stronghold of Pakistan’s religious parties that are sympathetic to the Taliban and al-Qaeda. These parties have led a movement to force Pervez Musharraf to give up either his presidency or the post of army chief. President Musharraf faces a credible threat from Islamic extremists and pockets of their supporters within...

We Are At War; Are We Prepared For It? SELF ^ | 9/13/2001 | MHGinTN Posted on 09/13/2001 12:44 PM EDT by MHGinTN I'm hesitant to post a thread when the load on the server is so severe, but there are good Freepers going off half-cocked. I'm still too angry to post comments 'off the top of my head', and I see a few others are also. Here are a few thoughts to ponder. We are at war with a subtle, determined, devious enemy. There is a fair likelihood that Osama bin Laden didn't mastermind this attack alone, that it...

There are warning and there are warnings. Thursday, September 11th, 2003 As we enter the day which marks the second anniversary of the infamous and cowardly attack by certain muslim left wing extremists on our country, it is hard and foolish not to focus on warnings. The national so called major media is, even today, still trying to find a way to claim that we were warned, but ignored the warnings. And I would have to think that their claim, like much of their "news" is not only biased, but sorely lacking in credible proof and totally devoid of absolute...

September 11, 2003Thursday of the Twenty-third Week in Ordinary Time Psalm: Thursday 39 Reading I Responsorial Psalm Gospel Reading ICol 3:12-17 Brothers and sisters:Put on, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved,heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience,bearing with one another and forgiving one another,if one has a grievance against another;as the Lord has forgiven you, so must you also do.And over all these put on love,that is, the bond of perfection.And let the peace of Christ control your hearts,the peace into which you were also called in one Body.And be thankful.Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly,as...

ARAPAHOE COUNTY - The Falcon Creek Middle School teacher who left class Thursday after administrators rejected his teaching plans for Sept. 11 was placed on administrative leave Friday until the district believes he is "emotionally" prepared to return to the classroom, he said. "They want to make a call (about) when I am fit to be in the classroom," said eighth-grade teacher Jason Ritter. "I'm emotionally in the right place, as I was (Thursday)." A spokeswoman for the Cherry Creek School District confirmed the leave. Spokeswoman Tustin Amole declined to say whether Ritter's job was at stake, but said the...

Tilly 9/13/2003 10:57AM PST September 11, 2001: I started my daily commute routine from my apartment at 76th and Lexington in Manhattan's Upper East Side to my World Trade Center (WTC) Tower 2 office. Getting to the 77th Street/Lexington Avenue subway station around my usual 7:40 a.m., I found that the downtown local was running late, but I was happy to see my three buddies on the train. They had the same commute as I did (they worked in WTC 1), and they were often feeling the morning effects of a previous night's socializing; I enjoyed teasing them on the...

Today -- time to begin the forgetting again? By Michelle Malkin, Creators Syndicate columnist WASHINGTON - Across the nation, public officials struck somber poses and shed television-friendly tears and bowed their blow-dried heads in memory of the victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. They held hands, lit candles and passed a plateful of platitudes: ``Never forget,'' they intoned. ``Let's roll,'' they thundered. ``God bless America,'' they warbled in perfect harmony. They assured us that they are committed to fighting terror and securing our borders and doing whatever it takes to protect the homeland from another horrific mass murder at...

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY Okay, the day is still young, and God knows what mischief may yet be in store. But I can’t help being amazed at how well we have done in these first two years of what we all knew would be a new world, back on that beautiful morning, a world ago. Despite the best efforts of news media to portray us as a terrified, angst-ridden nation ready to fall apart with just one more good poke…despite desperate attempts to undo unparalleled victories for political gain…despite hysterical warnings of Islamic rage and retribution, we have gone two years now,...

LONDON — Moderate Muslims joined Britain's opposition Conservative Party yesterday in calling for a crackdown on militant Islamists in the country. The demand came one day after a Muslim group turned September 11 into a tribute to the "magnificent 19" hijackers who killed more than 3,000 people in the attacks two years ago. "This is a sickening abuse of the freedom of speech that this country provides to all those who live in it," said Oliver Letwin, who would become Home Secretary if the Conservatives win the next election.

Two years ago on September 11, I stared in disbelief at the television watching two towers come crashing down. On that fateful Tuesday morning it became clear to me what was unfolding. I had been taught in high school and in my first month at college that multiculturalism was one of America's greatest attributes and strengths, yet this conflicted with what the billowing smoke over the Big Apple skyline was telling me. The lies I had been taught died hard that day, as Rudyard Kipling's famous verse became entrenched in my mind: "The West is the West and the East...

To observe this Sept. 11, 2001, anniversary, I urge critics of Attorney General John Ashcroft - especially the Democratic presidential candidates - to read the article "The Falling Man" in the current Esquire. A photo on page 176 shows the article's subject plunging headfirst from the North Tower of the World Trade Center. Taken by celebrated Associated Press photographer Richard Drew, the picture was printed once in various newspapers - then banned by the U.S. media as too awful for public consumption. The riveting article, by Tom Junod, chronicles the search to identify the "falling man," but the larger point...

The second anniversary of the 9/11 attacks was a bad day for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which has been struggling to overcome its reputation as a front group for Islamist terrorists. Senators at a September 10 terrorism and homeland security hearing ripped into CAIR for its ties to the Hamas suicide bombers. As if that wasn’t bad enough, on the same day CAIR’s former community affairs director pled guilty to committing bank and visa fraud while running an Islamic charity that the US calls a front for associates of Osama bin Laden. CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad canceled...

There's nothing like being down at Ground Zero, where the once mighty twin towers stood, to appreciate the enormity of what happened there. I remember covering events down there right after the attacks, did so again a year after the attacks, and yet again, from a roof-top perch overlooking a vast empty pit this past week, two years after the attacks. It is a sobering experience. Just looking at the faces this year of children reading off the names of moms and dads killed in those attacks reminds you of the pain that continues from that day. But I'm not...

<p>LONDON — Moderate Muslims joined Britain's opposition Conservative Party yesterday in calling for a crackdown on militant Islamists in the country.</p> <p>The demand came one day after a Muslim group turned September 11 into a tribute to the "magnificent 19" hijackers who killed more than 3,000 people in the attacks two years ago.</p>

September 13, 2003 | For two years since the massacres of Manhattan, Washington and Pennsylvania, Americans have been trying hard to absorb the strikes, and understand their motives. Despite silly conspiracy theories that attempted to implicate the US government itself, but which the terrorists themselves have discredited by taking direct responsibility, a universal consensus has accused al-Qaida of masterminding and executing 9/11. From there on, a lesser consensus, but still on global scale, legitimized an all out campaign against the Bin Laden organization worldwide. The Taliban regime was removed and dozens of countries, including many Arab and Muslim Governments have...

<p>That Our Sons Did Not Die in Vain On losing a child in the cause of freedom.</p> <p>The debate over whether our cause in Iraq is just rages in the media with one expert after another shouting to be heard. With the second anniversary of Sept. 11 upon us, this endless second-guessing about our decision to go to war has me frantically flipping channels to get away from it all.</p>

<p>WASHINGTON — A group of women who lost their husbands in the collapse of the World Trade Center are beginning to change some minds about the need for an independent commission to investigate the Sept. 11 attacks. Their next target: President Bush.</p>

NEW YORK - Television networks somberly paused Thursday to remember the terror of two years ago, although coverage was scaled back from the first anniversary of the attacks on New York and Washington. NBC's Katie Couric and Ann Curry wore black outfits on the "Today" show, with Couric saying, "Obviously, Sept. 11 will never be just another day on the calendar." Yet in contrast to a full morning of special coverage last year, ABC, CBS and NBC offered only brief reports during key moments of memorial services on Thursday, otherwise sticking with regular programming. "The coverage reflects the events of...

I am proud to state that my school remembered 9/11. It's an international school here in Indonesia. We are fortunate to have morning assemblies, and on September the 11th, Grade 10 paid homage to everyone who lost their lives on that day. 20 students sang Lee Greenwood's "I'm Proud To be an American" with gusto to the accompaniment of candles in their hands. Not an American amongst them, these students were Indian, Indonesian, Chinese, and Korean. It made me proud to be a teacher at a school where values are still taught.

If there was a silver lining to the tragic events of September 11, it was the return of heroism. Before 9/11, heroes had lost stature in a seemingly materialistic society that elevated its movie stars to the same level of fame as its Founding Fathers. But that changed in an instant. In the days and months following the attacks, myriad stories came out about the heroes of that day—police officers, firefighters, and hundreds of others—many of whom selflessly gave their lives trying to save others. Some of the most compelling stories to emerge involved everyday Americans, from passengers who courageously...

These are excerpts from a chapter from Dick Morris' new book, "Off With Their Heads - Traitors, Crooks & Obstructionists In American Politics, Media, Business." This chapter is titled, "How Clinton Left Ticking Terror Time Bombs For Bush To Discover." As King Louis XV lay dying, he ruminated about the state of the pre-revolutionary French kingdom his son would soon inherit. Every-where he looked, he saw peril -- the anger of the peasants, the arrogance of the nobility, the unfairness of the tax system. Sadly, he reflected that the young man who would become Louis XVI faced tough times. Old...

For Richard Drew the worst moment photographing the tragedy of the was not photographing the burning buildings, or people throwing themselves out of the windows to certain death, or the collapse of the buildings, nor any of the other gruesome sights that he saw that first day. His worst moment came when he decided to turn his attention on other parts of the story and moved up to the Armory where the families of the missing people were trying to locate their lost loved ones: “It was sort of early in the morning, and there were not a lot of...

<p>September 11, 2003, in the morning in lower Manhattan, was like September 11, 2001. A beautiful morning. As good as a day in September ever gets. And it was just like this, then and yesterday, on the banks of the Potomac flowing past the Pentagon and in a breezy field in southeastern Pennsylvania.</p>

<p>OBSERVING THE second anniversary of Al Qaeda's assault on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, administration spokesmen sought to highlight progress in the war on terrorism to support President Bush's claim that we're getting safer every day. But if one stands back and asks whether Americans are actually safer from terrorist attacks than we were 12 months ago, a serious answer requires a net assessment. Our safety is a function not only of what our government does, but also of changes in our adversaries' capabilities and motivation.</p>

Marking the second anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations has released a poll that, among other things, reflects American Muslim political views. Suffice it to say the majority aren't in George W. Bush's camp. Only 2 percent said they would vote for President Bush. One in 10 Muslim respondents say they support the president's Iraq policy. Asked which 2004 presidential candidate would get their vote, American Muslims (a large majority of whom vote in presidential elections) from 41 states favor former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean (26 percent), followed by Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich of...

Michael Stipe, the lead singer of the group R.E.M., appears in an ad from the American Civil Liberties Union that reads, "I am not an American who wants to be shut up or have my neighbors be shut up." THE second anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks passed yesterday and President Bush pressed for greater expansion of law enforcement powers, a new advertising campaign by the American Civil Liberties Union has been rolling out to oppose the tactics and proposals of the White House. The ads, which indirectly accuse the administration of trampling on the Bill of Rights,...

<p>Two days after September 11, Congress approved legislation expediting benefits for public safety officers killed or injured in the line of duty that day.Three days after September 11, Congress appropriated $40 billion in emergency funds for recovery from and response to the attacks, as well as legislation authorizing the use of military force.A week later, Congress approved additional legislation to stabilize and secure our economy and our airports, and to provide compensation for the victims of the September 11 attacks.And in subsequent weeks, Congress enacted several other bills and appropriations measures to bolster national security and upgrade our capabilities to combat terrorism.</p>

Capitol Hill (CNSNews.com) - Congressional leaders must deal with the political crisis that could be created if a majority of members of the House of Representatives were incapacitated or killed by a terrorist attack. That was the message three Democrats delivered in the shadow of the U.S. Capitol Thursday beside a large photograph showing the effects of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, to help end World War II. "If a bomb of that nature or greater were to be exploded in this city, probably no member of Congress in the vicinity of the capital would survive that attack,"...

<p>In anticipation of the anniversary of September 11 and the recent news that the United States would seek a greater role for the United Naitons in Iraq, we devoted The American Survey to examining American attitudes toward international affairs. The survey (conducted Aug.26-28, among 600 adults nationwide, margin of error plus/minus 4.0 percent), portrays an American public who looks on international engagement with an optimism tempered by practicality and softened by a new awareness of the dangers of the world around them.</p>

<p>Al Qaeda's war on America didn't start September 11, 2001. However, September 11 was the day al Qaeda's gangsters escalated their unholy jihad by committing mass murder in the land of the free.</p> <p>Prior to September 11, America did its usual thing. No, America wasn't asleep, not exactly. America has more eyes and ears and brains probing and puzzling over the planet than any other nation or organization. Information, however, does not automatically translate into an accurate understanding of a clever enemy's plans, much less effective counteraction.</p>

Washington (CNSNews.com) - On a day when many Americans were solemnly remembering the lives lost two years ago in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, a band of anti-war demonstrators used the occasion to call for world peace and warn Americans that the White House was lying about the attacks. Officially, the D.C. Antiwar Network organized the vigil, but more than a dozen people from various walks of life turned out to express their frustrations about the administration's policies in Iraq and the war on terrorism. They said the second anniversary of the terrorist attacks served as an impetus to make...

Two years ago, as Jason Ritter watched the footage of the crumbling World Trade Center towers, he vowed to spend every Sept. 11 in the classroom helping his students understand and remember the tragedy. Instead, Ritter, 26, an eighth- grade teacher at Falcon Creek Middle School in Arapahoe County, spent the second anniversary of the terrorist attacks alone at home after administrators deemed his lesson plan "inappropriate" and advised him to rethink it. He said he was told not to talk about the tragedy - or else leave for the day. Thursday morning, the educator chose to go home. The...

<p>A radical British Muslim group, which had planned to celebrate the September 11 attacks at public meetings across Britain, was forced to cancel the events yesterday when four chosen venues refused to make space available.</p> <p>Instead, the Al Muhajiroun group held a news conference where it displayed portraits of the hijackers &#8212; labeled the "Magnificent 19" &#8212; with Osama bin Laden's face superimposed over an image of the New York's World Trade Center in flames.</p>

<p>Yesterday's anniversary of the attack on America is a painful reminder of the deadly stakes in the war on terrorism and why national security will be a pivotal issue in next year's presidential election, campaign strategists say.</p> <p>The political reverberations from the nation's solemn observances remain a highly sensitive subject for President Bush's campaign and Republican Party officials &#8212; who refuse to discuss any campaign implications of the September 11 anniversary, on or off the record.</p>

<p>NEW YORK &#8212; The voices of children framed the second anniversary of the World Trade Center disaster, pronouncing the names of the dead and singing the nation's hymns in a ceremony wrought with grief and remembrance.</p> <p>"It is in them that our spirit lives, carrying both our deepest memories and the bright promise of tomorrow," Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said as the ceremony began at 8:30 a.m.</p>

President Bush, joined by First Lady Laura, and Vice President and Mrs. Cheney, observed a moment of silence on the White House lawn this morning to honor the victims of the September 11th, 2001 tragedies. The First Couple began the day with a memorial service at St. John's Episcopal Church, and later in the afternoon visited wounded soldiers at Walter Reed Army hospital. Enjoy your daily dose of Dubya!

<p>President Bush yesterday set a somber and subdued tone as ceremonies throughout the area marked the second anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks.</p> <p>"Today, our nation remembers &#8212; we remember a sad and terrible day, September the 11th, 2001. We remember lives lost. We remember the heroic deeds. We remember the compassion and the decency of our fellow citizens on that terrible day," the president said after attending an early morning church service.</p>

Vietnamese Communists Applaud Terrorist Attacks on U.S.Echoing the government’s official line, many Communists in Hanoi have expressed jubilation over and support for the terrorist attacks on the U.S. The Vietnamese government officially accuses the U.S. of "brazen interference" in Vietnam's internal affairs that "offends the nationalism of the Vietnamese people." Two days after the attacks, People's Army Daily, the official mouthpiece of Vietnam's military establishment, blames U.S. foreign policies for the acts of terror at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon: "If Americans had not pursued isolationism and chauvinism, and if they had not insisted on imposing their...

On the anniversary of 9-11, does anyone remember that we Americans are still at war and in a struggle for our very national survival? Most Democrats are playing politics with the security of the U.S. In their zeal to discredit President Bush, they are covering over the fact that we are at war with a determined enemy who is motivated by religious passion to destroy us. The Muslim fundamentalists do not hate us because of something we did or will do to them. They hate us because of who we are. They believe we are the world bastion of Judeo-Christian...

Today marks the second anniversary of the worst, most cold-blooded attacks on the United States since its Founding. In his address to the nation this past Sunday, President Bush said that: We have learned that terrorist attacks are not caused by the use of strength; they are invited by the perception of weakness. And the surest way to avoid attacks on our own people is to engage the enemy where he lives and plans. We are fighting the enemy (abroad) so that we do not meet him again on our own streets, in our own cities. Defense of our people...

Over the past 20 months, the percentage of Americans who believe the religion of Islam encourages violence against non-Muslims has doubled, according to an ABC News poll. Less than half of Americans now call Islam peaceful and one in three believe it encourages violence against non-Muslims, the survey said. ABC said a poll taken four months after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, showed 14 percent believed mainstream Islam encourages violence. Today it's 34 percent. The survey also showed a sharp rise in people who think Islam does not teach respect for the beliefs of non-Muslims – 22 percent...

It’s been two years, but already plenty of people who should know better have declared that Osama bin Laden is winning. Two years might be a long time in our soundbite-obsessed, fast food, instant gratification, throwaway democracies. But in terms of this war on evil it is a blink of the eye. Our enemies don’t work from one rolling news bulletin to the next. They are in this for as long as it takes, whether a year, a millennium or eternity. The only way freedom will prevail is to dig in for the duration. There will be no armistice, no...

September 11 will be remembered as the worst terrorist attack America ever suffered — if we're lucky. If not, if we're not extraordinarily successful in waging the war on terrorism, there remains this possibility: That years from now, Osama bin Laden and 9/11 will be to terrorism what the Wright Brothers and Kitty Hawk were to aviation — just a modest beginning. =Too many leading political figures and pundits either don't understand this or refuse to accept it. They view what's taking place today in Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Israel, India, the Philippines, and other places as separate skirmishes engendered by...

September 11, 2003, was a beautiful late-summer day in New York — just as it was two years ago. It's an eerie juxtaposition. Those 3,000 people who were killed in the abominable terrorist attacks of 9/11 were folks who simply went to work to do their jobs. And yet it happened — the past cannot be changed. It is impossible to think about those events without a deep-rooted sense of sadness. Psychiatrists tell us that underneath sadness there is almost always a strong sense of anger and resentment. Anger is an especially bad emotion; it eats away at the insides...