Althouse: America under attack — 14 years ago, this morning.

September 11, 2015

America under attack — 14 years ago, this morning.

(Photos, of my newspapers and magazines, taken 10 years ago.)

43 comments:

Rusty said...: I'm told, by posters on this site no less, that we here in America have nothing to fear from ISIS.
Apparently this 9/11 thing was just an aberration.; 9/11/15, 8:09 AM
traditionalguy said...: Islam is an attack force. The Saudi oil wealth builds and staffs mosques as bases all over the next lands it plans to plunder. Nothing has changed.; 9/11/15, 8:11 AM
David Begley said...: Exactly right traditionalguy.

And now we celebrate giving $150b to Iran so they can mount their nukes on ICBMs.; 9/11/15, 8:15 AM
DrSquid said...: One thing that has changed is our president is inviting 10,000 of those people who were dancing in their streets 14 year ago today, to come and live with us now. I guess we're over it.; 9/11/15, 8:19 AM
garage mahal said...: Thanks, Obama.; 9/11/15, 8:36 AM
Etienne said...: When General "Chappy" James, Commanding General of the North American Air Defense Command, declared "We have no air defense [in America] worthy of the name" he was retired and died a few months later.

Obviously, he had nothing to lose. He didn't even get to enjoy his military pension.

That was back in 1978, when the Air Force decided that Air Defense could be a part time job, and left to weekend pilots.

Not much has changed.

Can you list the number of Generals who were fired over 9/11? Yea, me neither...; 9/11/15, 8:38 AM
TreeJoe said...: Coupe - You fire a general for giving him or her a mission and they failed to do it, and failed do to incompetence.

A 9/11 event is a failure of intelligence. Just like the answer to government problems for democrats is more government, the answer to military/intelligence problems for republicans is more military/intel (See: Department of Homeland Security).; 9/11/15, 8:42 AM
Anonymous said...: Here's to Rick Rescorla!

What a Mensch!

Absent Companions...; 9/11/15, 8:48 AM
Scott said...: The election of Bill De Blasio indicates that New York City is absolutely, completely over it.; 9/11/15, 8:49 AM
Scott said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 9/11/15, 8:49 AM
rhhardin said...: The papers didn't realize right away that the proper sentiment was sentimentality.; 9/11/15, 8:50 AM
Curious George said...: Why did you have multiple copies?; 9/11/15, 8:55 AM
Anonymous said...: Coupe said...
Can you list the number of Generals who were fired over 9/11? Yea, me neither...

The place to look to fire people were the Clinton Justice Department, the FBI and the CIA. The only "Generals" were

Janet Reno and Jamie Gorelick who hobbled the DoJ and FBI from sharing intel.; 9/11/15, 8:58 AM
Etienne said...: It was an ingenious plan. Turn off the planes transponders and they became invisible.

Back in the 60's to late 70's when transponders were being deployed more and more, it was a secondary thing, because there was a bunch of radars sweeping the skies and all the data was sent to Regional centers, and F-106 fighters were on 15 minute alert in their barns, and could be at Mach-1 a few minutes later.

All this was pretty boring, and they decided that the FAA could take-over this boring job, and weekend F-16 pilots could scramble after they drove from their homes in the suburbs.

The FAA loves transponders. Not so much radar. The FAA radars were all designed in the 60's, and modified in the 80's. With more and more Wind Farms popping up, the radars have to mask out these areas as the automated trackers think the Wind Farms are airplanes. Thus, radar is pretty much obsolete now.

It's just that the enemy turns their transponders off, and it is so unfair.

Anyway, some General, some Congress committee approved all that...; 9/11/15, 8:58 AM
JSD said...: Mohammed Atta spent his last night on earth at the Comfort Inn in Portland, Maine. The owners of the Inn converted the hotel room to a storage room ASAP. Even though it’s unlikely that anyone would ever know which specific room he stayed in, the idea of spending one night in that room was too disturbing. A kind of Stephen King foreboding.; 9/11/15, 9:01 AM
Owen said...: We have forgotten whatever lesson that day brought. Or rather, we have learned the lesson the enemy wanted to teach. As with killing cartoonists and beheading captured aid workers; as with dynamiting ancient temples; as with throwing gays off buildings and stoning women for "honor crimes" like driving a car or reading the wrong book; the enemy works constantly to intimidate and demoralize. Direct conquest is not necessary. We are being trained to submit.; 9/11/15, 9:05 AM
Jaq said...: Thanks, Obama. -garage

No, "Thanks, Bill Clinton" His missile attacks to distract from the heat of all of the sexual harassment and rape claims provoked this.; 9/11/15, 9:16 AM
Jaq said...: A 9/11 event is a failure of intelligence. Just like the answer to government problems for democrats is more government, the answer to military/intelligence problems for republicans is more military/intel (See: Department of Homeland Security).

Yeah, once we committed an act of war against Afghanistan, we should have been expecting a response. To just pretend we never did it and to carry on as usual was a colossal error in judgement. But that would place a fair part of the blame on Clinton, so forget I said it.; 9/11/15, 9:20 AM
Etienne said...: By making citizenship and passports obsolete, we are creating a country where anyone can form a corporation and elect the Representatives.

Go with the flow. If you fight it, you'll only get a migraine.; 9/11/15, 9:21 AM
MAJMike said...: Never forget. Never forgive. Never submit.; 9/11/15, 9:22 AM
Peter said...: "It was an ingenious plan. Turn off the planes transponders and they became invisible."

Doesn't FAA's Next Generation Air Traffic Control System (NextGen) mostly involve relying on GPS and other data as reported from aircraft (ADS-B), instead of info from ground-based radar?

And, umm aren't ADS-B signals unencrypted and unauthenticated (thus creating opportunities for spoofing and other mischief)?; 9/11/15, 9:54 AM
Robert Cook said...: "The Saudi oil wealth builds and staffs mosques as bases all over the next lands it plans to plunder."

How DARE you slander our good allies?!; 9/11/15, 9:56 AM
Bushman of the Kohlrabi said...: Thanks, Obama

Obama isn't to blame for 9/11, Islamists are. If you want to blame him for something a better option would be his allowing (and paying) a terrorist state to obtain nuclear weapons.; 9/11/15, 9:57 AM
CStanley said...: Every year that goes by it seems that much more tragic for the missed opportunities. Could anyone have imagined during those first months that we'd be so divided in 2015?; 9/11/15, 10:18 AM
Bay Area Guy said...: It's a good day for reflection. In response to the savagery by Al Queda, a lotta heroes were made that day. Godspeed.; 9/11/15, 10:46 AM
Johanna Lapp said...: The guy with the cart on West Street sold sweet, milky coffee to high schoolers for a buck, but was famous for complaining with every cup that kids were growing up too fast these days.

"Growing up too fast" was the slang for sneaking out after first period for a caffeine break, and I only had the privilege once. It was a Tuesday.

I'm pretty sure I was his last underage customer that morning, and the cart never returned after school finally reopened.

So I'm the guardian of that day's lesson.; 9/11/15, 11:26 AM
Shawn Levasseur said...: Gotta love the Onion. While others where wondering how long they should wait before starting up comedy shows again, the Onion just did it.

I particularly liked the overall title of their 9/11 coverage, "Holy Fucking Shit!" It was pretty much most everyone's reaction at the time.; 9/11/15, 11:29 AM
Shawn Levasseur said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 9/11/15, 11:29 AM
Shawn Levasseur said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 9/11/15, 11:30 AM
Rusty said...: Coupe said...
It was an ingenious plan. Turn off the planes transponders and they became invisible.

No they don't. They're still visible on radar. ATC just doesn't know the flight number of the plane. That's what the transponder does identifies the plane by it's flight number. The controllers can still see the plane until it gets under their radar.
In the case of 9/11 since the plans took off normally with their transponders on the ATCs still knew who they were when they turned them off. The confusion comes when the plane is out of range of the original ATC. It can't be "handed off" to the next tracking station.; 9/11/15, 11:48 AM
Achilles said...: The followers of Islam demonstrated how thin the line is between civilization and barbarity.

Most of the rest of us showed in the time following 9/11 how hard we would fight to protect civilization.

Now we are showing how short our memories are.; 9/11/15, 11:49 AM
Birches said...: What Achilles said...Our memories are too short.

You know what would help? An airing of The Path to 9/11.; 9/11/15, 12:20 PM
Anonymous said...: Yet Obama is pushing to allow 10,000 come here, and two Democrats are pushing for at least 100,000.....Remember the Tsarnaev brothers??? They were refugees that came here and got all the freebies and yet they hated us anyways.....Obama never helped the Syrians and made their country worse by the imaginary red line that he set....Do you think they forgot???; 9/11/15, 12:33 PM
exhelodrvr1 said...: The Drill Sgt,

"Here's to Rick Rescorla!
What a Mensch!
Absent Companions..
9/11/15, 8:48 AM"

Absolutely.; 9/11/15, 1:07 PM
oleh said...: I still have that Onion somewhere.; 9/11/15, 1:31 PM
Jaq said...: They may have buried "The Path to 9-11" because it makes Clinton look bad, but "The Hunt for bin Laden" covers a lot of the same ground, I think. The protests in Afghanistan and Pakistan after Clinton's missile strikes there. The chants of "No War for Monica," the fact that Clinton wouldn't arrest him when he had the chance for legal reasons, and then his reckless missile attack on Afghanistan when he was in political trouble at home.

If they had a fact set like this against George Bush, it would be hammered endlessly in big budget Hollywood movies, TV shows, talking heads, etc..; 9/11/15, 1:57 PM
garage mahal said...: Bush inherited 9/11. There's no way Bush could have known it was planned. Memo schmemo.; 9/11/15, 3:11 PM
Jaq said...: So, garage. Other than the title, what was there in the memo that Bush could have acted on? Remember that due to Clinton era rules, the CIA was not allowed to tell the FBI who was behind earlier bombings, so the FBI was not able to pick up Atta, for example, who was known to the CIA.

From the briefing itself:

Al Qaeda members -- including some who are U.S. citizens -- have resided in or traveled to the U.S. for years, and the group apparently maintains a support structure that could aid attacks.

Two al-Qaeda members found guilty in the conspiracy to bomb our embassies in East Africa were U.S. citizens, and a senior EIJ member lived in California in the mid-1990s.

A clandestine source said in 1998 that a bin Laden cell in New York was recruiting Muslim-American youth for attacks.

We have not been able to corroborate some of the more sensational threat reporting, such as that from a ---- service in 1998 saying that Bin Laden wanted to hijack a U.S. aircraft to gain the release of "Blind Sheikh" Omar Abdel Rahman and other U.S.-held extremists.

Nevertheless, FBI information since that time indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York.

The FBI is conducting approximately 70 full-field investigations throughout the U.S. that it considers bin Laden-related. CIA and the FBI are investigating a call to our embassy in the UAE in May saying that a group or bin Laden supporters was in the U.S. planning attacks with explosives.

What was he supposed to do garage? Round up ever A-rab in the country? I guess hindsight is 20-20.

Who was it that pissed of Afghanistan again by attacking them with cruise missiles?; 9/11/15, 4:48 PM
Drago said...: I wonder what type of canned vienna sausages garage will be serving at his 9/11 salute to islamist terrorists party? Will there be an israeli pinata? A video homage to hamas?; 9/11/15, 5:36 PM
Michael K said...: "Here's to Rick Rescorla!"

Hear ! Hear!

I wonder how many know his name. Aside form the 2,000 people he rescued that day, of course.

I know that Morgan Stanley families remember him.; 9/12/15, 5:47 AM
Rusty said...: OK.
Now that that's over.
Back to out the outrage festival.
Over homos
cakes and flags.; 9/12/15, 7:49 AM
RecChief said...: I don't see Americans dancing in the streets celebrating a crane collapse in Mecca that killed scores of muslims. Think about that for a second.; 9/12/15, 9:40 AM
RecChief said...: What was he supposed to do garage? Round up ever A-rab in the country?

Worked for Roosevelt and the American citizens who had japanese heritage, why not?; 9/12/15, 9:43 AM