September 11, 2019

"7:35: Atta and al-Omari board American Airlines Flight 11."

From the 9/11 timeline (at Wikipedia).

251 comments:

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bagoh20 said...

And didn't Fahrenheit 911 win awards? They're not given on the basis of quality or truth, unless those things are exclusively on the Left.

rhhardin said...

This isn't about the efficacy or propriety of offering sympathy; you are entitled to your opinions about that. But many here, still, after all this time, _mourn_ for what happened 18 years ago. For some of us it is still fresh, and it hurts, and it is comforting to gather in a mutually agreeable place to share those feelings.

I say it's self-entertainment. I'd be interested in how you manage to mourn without entertaining yourself.

Some movie genres are based on that. People pay to see it.

rhhardin said...

These quiet gatherings to mourn are clickbait in every blog and on every newscast. Can that be right?

Is it not simpler to say that it's a way to make money off the audience that you can sell. That's how it persists year after year, until finally it stops working at some far future date, unless the audience wises up suddenly of course. We're being hoaxed.

FrankiM said...

“A picture of trump holding hands with the Taliban leader Mawlawi superimposed on the WTC crashing down would have been an effective campaign tool for the dems.”

If Trump’s meeting with the Taliban were to have gone through, would you folks here think it was just fine? To even suggest meeting with the Taliban during this week is disgusting.

“It is not reasonable to attack Chuck here without also acknowledging the problems with the original source of the quote. It is kind of a dick move by Chuck, but nothing compared to the original statement, which was scraping the absolute bottom of the barrel of narcissistic nihilism.”

Yet not one of them will criticize Trump for his crassness.

RIP to all those who lost their lives on 9/11 and since then from illness stemming from air quality that the rescuers were breathing and had to fight so hard to get compensation for.

FrankiM said...

“rhhardin, do you recall all the people here who expressed disapproval of Chuck's comments?

Many of us took them to be the equivalent of telling a widow what an asshole her dead husband had been.”

They are Trump’s words, you are shooting the messenger.

rhhardin said...

I'd speculate that Trump was hoping to get the dems to take the other side, and so wind up on the wrong side of yet another controversy. That's his usual plan.

rhhardin said...

I don't care how you took the words, I want explained what was wrong with them. It wouldn't hurt to quote the words, just as a reminder what's being explained.

Chuck's motive and Trump's aren't the same. Trump is trapping the dems, Chuck is misreading Trump.

FrankiM said...

“When someone uses this to kick us when we are hurting, there is often an immediate emotional reaction of anger. When someone who is generally considered a troll continues his behavior when it is clearly inappropriate, others will comment on it and call of his censure.”

Trump trolled you. You’re ok with it, huh. Why are none here outraged at Trump for saying it? You are displacing your disgust and anger on Chuck for telling you what Trump said?

Don’t you people realize what you’re doing?

rhhardin said...

If Trump’s meeting with the Taliban were to have gone through, would you folks here think it was just fine? To even suggest meeting with the Taliban during this week is disgusting.

No it isn't. It's sacred only in the imagination of soap opera women.

rhhardin said...

The secret is superficiality. Once you can fake superficiality, you've got it made.

- TV

Ray - SoCal said...

Link on a fifth plane:
https://whyy.org/articles/the-5th-plane-to-be-seized-on-911-and-the-terrorists-who-got-away/

Unfortunately seems to have been a bit of a cover up on 9-11, especially on the Saudi connection. Mueller was involved, as well as Bush. My theory it was just the usual bureaucratic cya.

I’m still amazed at what Bush and Rumsfeld did by successfully kicking out the Taliban so fast. Amazing we are still there 18 years later. I’m glad Bin Laden is dead, by American hands.

Francisco D said...

The thesis of the movie, if you can believe it, was that the US staged the 9/11 attack. Many prominent leftists celebrated this movie. A lotta 9/11 Truthers still believe this. Indeed, Michael Moore was feted at the Democrat Convention in 2004 as a hero.

The collapse of the towers was supposedly done with TNT. At the time, Inga blurted out, "Fire doesn't melt steel."

Oops! That was Rosie O'Donnell. You guys understand the confusion, I am sure.

FrankiM said...

“Chuck's motive and Trump's aren't the same. Trump is trapping the dems, Chuck is misreading Trump.”

Good grief. So Trump using 9/11 to “trap the dems” is ok? It’s better than what Chuck did?

You people are messed up.

Robert Cook said...

"They hijacked US planes because they wanted them full of fuel."

Because they didn't have any other means to inflict comparable injury on the U.S. They had no jets or bombs or missles, etc. They were a band of stateless terrorists with rifles who otherwise could have done nothing to us.

James K said...

The point is that one person saying a specific set of words to a particular group of people is not the same as a different person saying those same words to a different group of people. To take an obvious example, a black guy can use the N-word speaking to a bunch of other black guys. That's not the same as Chuck using it with a different group of people.

I didn't hear or see the context of Trump's comments, and I'm not defending them. But Chuck's use of those words in a different context to a different group of people is not equivalent to Trump's. In short, if we say Chuck was being an asshole, it doesn't imply Trump was being an asshole too.

Robert Cook said...

"However, let's not forget Michael Moore's high-grossing movie, Farenheit 911.

"The thesis of the movie, if you can believe it, was that the US staged the 9/11 attack."


I saw that movie, and I don't recall that being Moore's thesis at all. Rather, as I recall, he showed how the Bush Administration used the 9/11 attacks as an excuse to carry out our unwarranted attack on Iraq for U.S. geopolitical purposes. Which, of course, is accurate.

Calypso Facto said...

"Link on a fifth plane:"
So that article says the plane was in New York, but Michael K's story was about Detroit. Different instances with same details or one story with some word-of-mouth inaccuracies? Also, the consensus is that "all 19 terrorists" were quickly identified from mis-routed luggage ("A mix-up in Boston prevented the luggage from connecting with the plane that hijackers crashed into the north tower of the trade center. Seized by FBI agents at Boston's Logan Airport, investigators said, it contained Arab-language papers revealing the identities of all 19 hijackers involved in the four hijackings, as well as information on their plans, backgrounds and motives.). So, all these guys who got away would have coincidentally been from a different cell, somehow, and exactly all the 19 who died were identified? I'd guess there were lots of reasons for Middle-Easterners to be uncomfortable on a plane that day, and I think the idea that they were co-conspirators is still probably a long-shot.

Bay Area Guy said...

@Cook,

I saw that movie, and I don't recall that being Moore's thesis at all.

Well, your memory fails you. From Reason Magazine, a 2007 interview of Moore:

REPORTER: We want to get some ideas, your comments, on 9/11 being an inside job because since your last movie, which gave us a lot of information…

MOORE: Right, right, right.

REPORTER: … we now are in possession of all other kinds of facts and evidence.

MOORE: Right.

REPORTER: And we know that 9/11 was an inside job.

MOORE: Right.

REPORTER: So we want to get your comments on that.

MOORE: Well, I've had a number of firefighters tell me over the years, and since Fahrenheit 9/11, that they heard these explosions, that they believe there is much more to the story then we've been told. I don't think the official investigations have told us the complete truth. They haven't even told us half the truth. And so I support, and I hope, you know, if there's a new administration or somebody could open up a new investigation of this before we get too far away from it, to find out the whole truth. Let me just give you one thing that has—I've asked for for a long time. I've filmed before, down at the Pentagon, before 9/11. There's got to be at least 100 video cameras ringing that building, in the trees, everywhere. They've got that plane coming in with 100 angles. How come we haven't seen the straight—I'm not talking about stop-action photos, I'm talking about the video. I want to see the video, I want to see 100 videos that exist of this. Why don't they want us to see that plane coming into the building? Because, you know, if you know anything about flying a plane, if you're going 500 mph, if you're off by that much, you're in the river. To hit a building that's only 5 stories high that expertly, I believe that there will be answers in that video tape and you should demand that that tape is released.

REPORTER: The idea that the hole is about 8 feet wide…

MOORE: See, I'm not very good at the physics and all that. But believe me, the questions need to be asked.

REPORTER: So you have a lot of unanswered questions.

MOORE: Oh, and I intend in my own way to find some answers. So, thank you for whatever you're doing.

Roughcoat said...

bagoh20 said...
As to Hardin - he isn't wrong. You might not like it, and I think he would prefer it wasn't true, but mostly it is.


Do you really believe he isn't wrong?

narciso said...

Well ted rall had the notion it was all about a gas pipeline and he has a periodic column in the herald

Jim at said...


RIP to all those who lost their lives on 9/11 and since then from illness stemming from air quality that the rescuers were breathing and had to fight so hard to get compensation for.
- Inga

Oh, just go to hell. You don't mean a damn word of it.
If you did, you wouldn't be using 'sympathies' as another fucking dig at Trump.

narciso said...

Sorry the journal, this was presumably why didnt strike before hand

Chuck said...

Let’s quickly do away with any and all notions that Trump’s tweet about “even the haters and losers” on September 11th was a calculated political move by President Trump or even candidate Trump.

No; it was a tweet from private citizen Donald Trump on September 11, 2013.

Hahaha. This is all so rich; such vintage Althouse.blogspot commenting on this one.

rhhardin said...

No; it was a tweet from private citizen Donald Trump on September 11, 2013.

Great. In what context? Trump in 2008 was supporting Hillary (primaries, over Obama).

I don't spot any particular meaning in it, aside from pandering 9/11, conciliation, on its own.

rhhardin said...

On 9/11 annual celebrations, think like a sociologist.

Robert Cook said...

@Bay Area Guy:

This is what Moore is saying in an interview, and he still seems to be trying to avoid saying anything with certainty. However, I don't recall the film actually making that argument. If it did, then it completely escapes my memory.

wildswan said...


Narr said...
Galton was correct then and correct now.

Narr
Ecrasez l'infame

Not many people know that Galton's family made their money in the slave trade. They had shares in ships that made slave trade voyages and they assembled trading cargoes for slave trading ships. Then they began to specialize in making guns in Birmingham for the slave trade. So they got to be quite wealthy but as Quakers making guns and working in the slave trade their wealth and their business was problematic. So, finally, they got out of that and went into banking. Their bank made loans which helped build the first industrial slum, Duddeston on the edges of Birmingham. Then on to fresh triumphs academia, as Francis Galton developed the theory of eugenics. This theory says that our ancestors hand down our mental and moral qualities as well as our physical build. Strange to think that the man who proposed that theory had ancestors who were slave traders and slum landlords.

But here's the really strange thing. Some of Galton's cousins were fantastically wealthy, far richer than he was, and he was rich, because they intermarried with the Strutts and their textile fortune so they had that as well as their slave trade money. Among these Galtons were several Catholic converts. They helped build and support the Birmingham Oratory and its school where JRR Tolkien was a student. Tolkien's mentor there was Father Francis X Morgan, who was also Galton kin, and it was he who persuaded the Catholic Galtons to give land and money to the Oratory. One such piece of land was the Oratory Retreat house and it and its grounds provided the spark for Tolkien's portrait of Rivendell. Hillare Belloc was also a student of Father FX Morgan. So we can't know where the road leads onward, not even a road traveled by a Galton.

tim in vermont said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Bay Area Guy said...

@Cook,

You're being a bit narrow and naive here. The entire Farenheit 9/11 propaganda flick is based on a patchwork of lies that tries to implicate the Bush presidency and his family. The flick specifically argues the Bush admin, right after the planes crashed into the towers, secretly shuttled out of country Saudi Arabian family members, because they were all in on the attack, and wanted the casus belli to justify all the future foreign middle east wars that Bush, Cheney, Halliburton, wanted.

It's pure trutherism. That's the Left, that's your side, and if you liked the movie, that's your problem.


tim in vermont said...

"Then they began to specialize in making guns in Birmingham for the slave trade.”

That doesn’t exactly ring true. How many guns does it really take en ensure the security of a trading party and guarding captives?

tim in vermont said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
I Callahan said...

And most especially for me to have done it, with such bland precision that the Trump fans weren’t even aware of how they were supposed to react. Until it hit ‘em upside the head.

Chuck, you’re being a dick for the sake of being a dick. It’s all you ever do anymore. You’re not here to discuss, you’re not here to sell anything or change minds. You’re the mean kid with a magnifying glass trying to scorch us ants for no reason other than you can.

It isn’t my place to tell you to leave, but I must ask: you sure can’t take a hint, can you?

Narr said...

I knew a bit of Galton's background, and I know there's a new book out about connections between Quakers, arms manufacture, and slavery that could be interesting. The arms, Skylark, would have been relatively shoddy but cheap, and used less for force-protection than to trade, like booze, for people--IIRC my Triangle Trade history.

Of course, many great British and American fortunes were built on slavery or the slavery-service industry. Even John Locke ventured in slaves, apparently.

I think Galton was right enough--given the limitations of the knowledge of the day--to see that what he called Arabs were and are not promising modern people, in the mass. Many of us today are unaware that massive and expensive modernization and industrialization projects in the Muslim world have a record of failure going back to the 1830s . . .
Whether nature or nurture is probably unknowable, but they have peaked even if their oil has not.

Interesting about JRRT and HB.

Narr
(Bush II and crew lied their sorry asses off, BTW)

mockturtle said...

Chuck gets his jollies from being kicked in the ass by commenters here. Some kind of sexual fetish, I guess.

I Callahan said...

he showed how the Bush Administration used the 9/11 attacks as an excuse to carry out our unwarranted attack on Iraq for U.S. geopolitical purposes. Which, of course, is accurate.

Excuse? Moore was full of shit, and so are you here.

There were plenty of logical reasons to go into Iraq at the time. Your (and other clueless lefties’) philosophy demands that you ignore those other reasons because it doesn’t fit the usual “never do anything militarily anywhere” narrative. It’s a chickenshit cop out from top to bottom, and always was.

wildswan said...

Skylark said...
"Then they began to specialize in making guns in Birmingham for the slave trade.”

That doesn’t exactly ring true. How many guns does it really take en ensure the security of a trading party and guarding captives?"

Guns were one of the items traded for slaves purchased in Africa for The Americas. In the beginning it was one gun for one slave, then inflation set and it got to be three guns for one slave.

One source: https://archiveshub.jisc.ac.uk/features/oct06b.shtml

rcocean said...

All the 911 types were here on visas - many of them overdue. Open borders and a love for "Immigration" killed thousands. But you can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs, eh what?

rcocean said...

We need less talk of Victims and more Talk of Flight 93. "Lets roll"

rcocean said...

Remember Fire can't melt steel. That's what you get when stupid Bimbo's have TV shows.

rcocean said...

Can we talk more about slavery? I get tired of all this constant talk about the last 150 years.

wildswan said...

It's my opinion that the "Closing of the Gate" which was when Islam decided it knew enough and wasn't going to learn any more is the cause of the lack of famous scientists or discoveries. I despise jihadists especially murderers of women and little children who aren't even living up to their own religion. But I want to see them defeated, not us turning into them.

tim in vermont said...

"In the beginning it was one gun for one slave, then inflation set and it got to be three guns for one slave. “

That makes more sense. Why give them high quality guns?

The Vikings made a lot of loot selling Europeans taken in raids as slaves to the Muslims, who bought them with silver from a large deposit discovered about that time in Afghanistan. Muslims have been trading slaves for a thousand years, and are still at it in Libya, thanks to Her Thighness.

tim in vermont said...

I watched a John Wayne movie about the Civil War where the soldiers would start fires and put sections of torn up railroad track on them. so that the rails could be bent, to prevent them from being re-used.

Obviously Bush propaganda!

Narr said...

Sherman's neckties, as featured in "The Horse Soldiers," about Grierson's Raid in 1863.

There's a nearly-buried history of Muslim slaving out of North Africa up until the early 1800s (Shores of Tripoli and all that), grabbing Europeans in large numbers for fates worse than death (on which score I agree with Vonnegut: there are really few of those).

Narr
Us into them? Not following, wildswan

chickelit said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
chickelit said...

I don't buy rhhardin's view that Chuck misreads Trump; I think Chuck deliberately goads people here. The Althouse blog has a very long history of bad faith commenters. If you're confused about the term "bad faith commenter," ask Althouse. She coined it.

Oso Negro said...

RHHardin - I did a lot of grieving with my son on the dock after he came home from Afghanistan . Sometimes you have to have skin in the game to feel stuff.

rcocean said...

Reading the comments was an amusing experience. Chuck seems to fill some hole in people's lives. Even remembering 911 is 2nd to talking about Chuck.

Why does Chuck do what he does? Can we understand Chuck? What did he mean by his comment? Lets attack Chuck. Lets Defend Chuck. Lets hope Chuck responds so we can talk about Chuck more. Even RH gets into the act. Fortunately, Chuck is here to stay, so everyone can keep interested - God forbid he should leave. LOL!

rcocean said...

You mean after 3 years of Trolling, Chuck "Might be" a bad faith commentator. Really?
I find that hard to believe. LOL!

rhhardin said...

RHHardin - I did a lot of grieving with my son on the dock after he came home from Afghanistan . Sometimes you have to have skin in the game to feel stuff.

Of course. That's the right time to feel it.

Michael McNeil said...

I remember going in that morning to a defense contractor where we had some equipment running. The president of that little company told me he was certain we were going to respond with nukes.

Yet, the actual result was that not a shot was fired in anger for more than a month — and, of course, no nukes were employed.

That “cowboy” Bush!

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