I get angry when I see 9/11 being treated as a celebration, a holiday. It is neither. Those attacks represented a catastrophic defeat for the US. Our “Department of Defense” did not defend us against 19 hijackers armed with box cutters. Our nuclear submarines, with their missiles did not defend us, nor any of our high-tech aircraft; nor did our fabled Abrams M-1 tank, nor did our fleets of aircraft carriers. Get the picture? Maybe we should cut the defense budget by 75 percent to punish those who failed.
9/11- What I will Never Forget
Amidst the painful remembrances of 9/11, there are some facts that I will never forget: VP Dick Cheney cut $52 million from the anti-terrorism budget early in 2001 and closed the bin Laden desk at the CIA, effectively blinding us from detecting the plot; on 6 August 2001, George W. Bush received a CIA Presidential Daily Briefing, which was delivered by courier to Bush at his ranch. The title read “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US,” and on the same page “…Bin Laden…prepares operations years in advance” and “…Bin Laden wanted to hijack a US aircraft.” The president dismissed the messenger and went back to cutting brush.
I will never forget that the entire bin Laden family fled the country after 9/11, when no other planes were flying, leaving in a fleet of private jets from a Long Island airport. No one was allowed to question any one of them. I will never forget Bush’s reluctance to go after bin Laden; nor his plaintive “I really just don’t spend that much time on him, to be honest with you.” No one pointed out that the Bush family made millions from their investments in the bin Laden construction company, which was founded by Osama’s father.
I will not forget that Mayor Giuliani wanted the NYC emergency response center placed in the World Trade Center area, so he could visit with his girlfriend. That move paralyzed the city for a week. He also failed to provide adequate radios for police and firemen. Police copters saw that the towers were nearing collapse, but could not communicate with the firemen. By all means remember 9/11, but don’t forget the blatant criminal negligence of our “leaders” that led up to the disaster.