On September 11, 2021, Americans remember the worst attack on American soil since the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, which launched the United States into World War II.
On September 11, 2021, family members of 9/11 victims will gather at the National September 11 Memorial and Museum to read aloud the names of those who will killed in the attack plus the names of those killed in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. September 11 has been designated Patriot Day and a National Day of Service and Remembrance.
In Bixby, the Wealaka Chapter of the Daughters of the AMerican Revolution will have a patriotic ceremony at 9 a.m. on Sept. 11 in Washington Irving Park at Memorial Drive and the Arkansas River.
On September 11, 2001, 19 Muslim militants from al Qaeda began a series of airline hijackings and suicide attacks against targets in the United States. The attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. were successful and were the deadliest terrorist attacks in U.S. history.
The reports were that 2,750 people were killed in New York and 184 at the Pentagon. Another 40 Americans perished Pennsylvania when passengers aboard a hijacked plane thwarted that mission and the plane crashed.
All 19 terrorists died.
Hundreds of policemen and firefighters in New York City rushed to the World Trade Center after the first hijacked plane crashed into one of the Twin Towers. More than 400 heroic first-responders died in rescue attempts.
In 1996, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed met with Osama bin Laden in Tora Bora, Afghanistan. That was when Khalid Sheikh Mohammed proposed the plot to hijack airplanes and attack America. al Qaeda funded the plot with money and people. bin Laden orchestrated the attacks.
The plot included suicide pilots taking flight lessons in America, recruitment of suicide bombers, money from Dubai and coordinated leadership in Afghanistan. Part of the strategic planning took place in Hamburg, Germany.
At 9:59 a.m. on September 11, the World Trade Center’s damaged south tower completely collapsed. Twenty-nine minutes later, the north town fell. A dense cloud of smoke and debris covered Lower Manhattan.
New Yorkers tried to outrun the growing clouds of debris. Buildings next to the towers suffered great damage, too, and some fell. Fires at the twin towers smoldered for more than three months.
That morning, President George W. Bush had been visiting a second-grade classroom in Sarasota, Florida. When the second plane hit, Bush was told that America was under attack.
Bush was put on Air Force One and zig zagged back to Washington, D.C. At 8:30 p.m., Bush addressed the nation from the Oval Office. His message was that anyone who harbored these terrorists would get the same treatment that the hijackers would.
World markets were turned upside down as the World Trade Center was in the center of the New York financial district. The stock markets closed for four trading days as stocks suffered terrible losses.
Bush stopped all air traffic until September 13 and tens of thousands of Americans were stranded. The airports reopened with stringent security measures which are still in place and have been increased due to subsequent threats. Congress passed the Patriot Act which expanded the search and surveillance powers of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other law-enforcement agencies. Bush created a cabinet-level Department of Homeland Security.
al Qaeda and some other Muslims danced in streets in the Middle East as the successful attacks were seen as a major defeat of America. That was enhanced by worldwide coverage of the destruction by the liberal media.
But nations around the world rallied to support America.
It was soon discovered that al Qaeda was responsible and that their headquarters were in Afghanistan. al Qaeda was closely related to the Taliban, which recently regained control of Afghanistan after President Joe Biden surrendered control and evacuated our military and most U.S. citizens. The Taliban refused to extradite bin Laden and to stop al Qaeda’s terrorist activities.
America and other NATO forces attacked Afghanistan on October 7, 2001. Over a 20-year span, the U.S.-led effort killed thousands of terrorists and forced al Qaeda and Taliban leaders into hiding.
Bin Laden thought the attacks would force America to retreat from the Middle East, just as President Bill Clinton had retreated from Somalia in 1993.
Instead, the U.S. responded with pinpoint strikes from American airpower and more than 300 U.S. Special Forces soldiers on the ground working with 110 officers from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). In November, 2001, the Taliban fell to the Northern Alliance and the United States.
In December 2001, Bush decided to hold prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, which the U.S. had leased from Cuba since 1903 in an effort to keep them off U.S. soil and to avoid certain federal laws. It would eventually house about 800 prisoners.
On March 20, 2003, Bush invaded Iraq after intelligence agencies reported the presence of “weapons of mass destruction.” Bush said conditions forced America into a pre-emptive action. In 2002, Bush appointed the September 11 Commission and it found multiple failures in America’s intelligence agencies, particularly the CIA and FBI.
On May 2, 2011, the U.S. military killed Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan. They took his body aboard the USS Carl Vinson and buried him in an undisclosed area in the Northern Arabian Sea so that he would not have a burial site that could become a shrine.