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As we approach the twentieth anniversary of 9/11 – politicalbetting.com
As we approach the twentieth anniversary of 9/11 – politicalbetting.com
Twenty years on, 80% of Britons still remember where they were on 9/11https://t.co/dz25xBZiss pic.twitter.com/TYdsBpNwJa
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On 9/11 I felt better connected as I had the internet on my Nokia 7110 (well WAP) whilst the internet at work (and elsewhere) buckled under the load.
I had just bought some carpets from the djemma el fna and paid with a bank card. I then called my bank from the square and said to my bank manager please could he look out for duplicate transactions as I was worried about fraud.
He replied that of course he would but that at the moment they were conducting an evacuation from the building and they suspected 20,000 people had just been killed in NY.
The remainder of my time in Morocco was distinctly weird with, say, 50% of people broadly supportive of the act. Then again the following day the national newspaper carried a front page article by the king saying that Morocco was a friend of the west.
I was travelling with a US citizen and we phoned our respective embassies - the UK one said to return home, the US one said to stay where we were.
I'd been to the WTC the year before but hitting the Pentagon felt like a Pearl Harbour moment.
Was in Paris night of Bataclan attacks - did wonder why streets seemed deserted on way back to hotel. Turned on TV.
First memory of “significant event” was Kennedy assassination - didn’t understand what fuss was about and why camera was so jerky.
The final verdict on Biden’s decision will depend on whether the US can truly end the era that began with 9/11 – including the mindset that measures our credibility through the use of military force and pursues security through partnerships with autocrats. Can we learn from our history and forge a new approach to the rest of the world – one that is sustainable, consistent, and responsive to the people we set out to help; that prioritises existential issues like the fight against the climate crisis and genuine advocacy for the universal values America claims to support?
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/sep/10/20-years-biden-afghanistan-withdrawal-ended-9-11-era
I woke up, well rested, at around 9am, wandered over to the TV and switched it on. It was 7/7/2005.
As a 19 year old when it happened, in a way 9/11 kind of marks a break from the childhood optimism of a post Cold War future (the fall of the Berlin Wall being one of my first political memories), to the grim reality as an adult of a future that would include terrorism, wars and threats unfortunately.
But it will please purists I'm sure.
It was tragic to watch, but also rather surreal and incredibly gripping. My daughter (10 then) struggled, understandably, to understand that this was really happening, rather than a work of creative fiction. I did a bit, too.
I remember the initial reports on 7/7 “power outages on the underground” thinking “that sounds a bit fishy”.
And my reaction when Jean Charles De Menezes was shot “I hope to fiddle they’ve got the right man”.
Then I saw the image on TV.
It was just unthinkable before it happened.
It's an event that changed the world, much like Pearl Harbor. Worse in some ways as it wasn't a state that attacked but a terrorist group that showed it could attack the most powerful nation on Earth so easily.
Are we in a better position now 20 years later? I would argue not really, the ingredients are there for the likes of ISIS and Al-Qaeda to reform and become strong again back in Afghanistan. Still plenty of other radical islamic terrorist groups out there that want to launch attacks on the West.
I think it highly likely in my lifetime there will be another major attack in the UK or in the West, maybe not on the scale of a 9/11 again but coordinated well planned and devastating attacks to cause chaos and terror.
The Head of MI5 announced today that they have foiled 31 late stage terror plots in the last 4 years, so the threat is very much real:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-58512901
The next day, I was asked to lead a two minute silence outside the company.
It was a Tuesday as I recall - I was at work. A busy morning of meetings. I was aware "something" was happening but didn't really take it in until much later after the North Tower had collapsed.
Oddly enough, 7/7 resonated much more with me at the time for obvious reasons.
I didn't know Mrs Stodge in 2001 - she would be two years in the future. She hasn't spoken much about it but I know she was in Chicago and struggled to get home and I think she was very alone and frightened.
It sounds like Abba and I am glad it does, as nobody sounds like Abba. If it ain't broke why fix it.
The Visitors is my favourite album of theirs so the fact it sounds like Don't Shut Me Down could have gone on there makes me happy.
But each to their own and all that.
But I'll be transferring to the 35-54 demographic soon, so I'll be old then.
She was right, of course.
I wonder if this will finally lead to the long overdue pricing by length of travel on it rather than effectively charging full price for pretty much any length of journey?
So we turned it on and people who weren’t actually working came and watched in horror.
In the mid 80s, before the internet or 24 hour news, I was working for IBM (Northern Road, Portsmouth). IBM had two sort-of internet bulletin boards called IBMVM (for mainframe stuff) and IBMPC for ... You get the picture.
There's an IBM site within sight of launches from Cape Canaveral, so people there would give the rest of the world 'as live' text commentary on space shuttle launches.
January 28th 1986, I was following the launch of the shuttle, when the commenter said 'something's gone wrong, there are too many smoke columns.' it was of course the Challenger. I told people around me, but there was nothing on the radio news for at least an hour, maybe two. So there's a high probability I was the first person in the UK to know about it.
After the first plane hit one of my friends got a call from his mum (like SE) saying what had just happened and so a group of us went into the main meeting room which had a tv and saw the second plane hit shortly afterwards.
Then someone popped in to ask me why I was still there and mentioned what had happened which I didn't quite believe. It was only when I got home that I saw the news that I realised and then I spent a lot of time trying to keep the children away from the TV.
A couple of days later my husband ended up in hospital with head and face injuries after a car hit him (he was cycling on the Outer Circle of Regents Park on his way home) and left the scene (a Good Samaritan lorry driver found him) so I became preoccupied with that as the injuries were quite serious.
Incidentally that's where my name comes from. I stopped cycling on that road after that and would go through the park instead, despite it not being permitted. An absurd restriction - now thankfully lifted.
People's reactions were very odd. I am generally a royalist, and whilst I thought it was sad, it didn't really affect me deeply. My then-GF's dad was German, and a vehement republican; he apparently cried his eyes out.
(*) I've just checked, and the BBC News 24 channel started a couple of months after her death.
That was the event which drove home to me the power of TV. My then wife didn't understand why it was a big thing until she saw the reports on TV. A friend who didn't have a TV never understood what all the fuss was about.
I've no idea why it wasn't left to the parent themselves to tell them, or another parent (or perhaps it was, and they went to the headmaster's office to get the call?)
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2003/feb/12/terrorism.alqaida
false alarms to justify passing stupid lawsterrorist threats in that time it’s easy to get confused.I found the whole candles and votive offerings that week a huge overreaction. It was as if Britain had rediscovered its inner Catholicism. Reminiscent of nothing so much as those shrines to the Madonna you see all over Southern Italy.
Back upstairs with the coffees and we watched the situation develop on the bedroom TV.
South Wales beckons.
One school is that it changed everything, another is it changed nothing.
The former build a timeline around 9/11 not happening having a chain reaction through Europe, the Middle East and beyond fundamentally altering British and American politics. The latter argue something like 9/11 would have happened sooner or later given the build up of AQ in Afghanistan.
In terms of 1914, it's one thing to build a world with no great wars (though plenty of little ones) in the 20th Century but that bumps up against the argument war had become inevitable in 1914 because too many important players saw it as a possible solution to seemingly intractable problems or unstoppable trends.
For all our differences we are an excellent and unique discussion forum
Can't wait for my next Tyrolean dumplings with bacon and sauerkraut. Yum.
Well done @MikeSmithson. A bit well done @rcs1000.. Reluctantly well done @TSE.
I do not wish to enrage you further on the topic but these proposals will hurt Daughter in multiple ways: on her income, on that of her staff and then on her business. Plus the increase in corporation tax as well. It feels like another hammer blow - on top of the last year and a half, especially after all the hard work she has put in and is continuing to put in to keep her business going.
It may not be the next Google I realise but three points (1) She has created jobs - and in an area where these are not plentiful; (2) she has learnt a lot about business; and (3) this is only the start of her business career. And the stamp duty holiday has pushed up the price of houses round here too - which worsens her chances of finding somewhere to buy. All this after a time when her social life - even during lockdown - has been put on hold.
Which political party is on the side of her and millions like her?
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2021/sep/10/pensioners-governments-tax-triple-lock-pensions-rise-national-insurance