(On the Kanto Plain, Japan)Detailed Review on the Day of Destiny
It is September 11, 2008 today.
It has past seven years since the same day of 2001.
Yet, Mr. Osama bin Laden is at large while Mr. George W. Bush (and Mr. Dick Cheney) is in the White House.
However, no terror attacks have been successfully carried out on the mainland U.S. and overseas U.S. properties since September 11, 2001.
U.S. troops are now in Afghanistan and Iraq freely moving around and patrolling; the Saddam Hussein regime and the Taliban government have gone, though there are still strong insurgents in Iraq and even the revival of the Taliban dominance in some local provinces in Afghanistan.
U.S. voters are now ready for voting for anti-Iraqi War African-American Presidential candidate or a conservative female Republican Vice-Presidential candidate.
On September 11, 2001, the only mighty challenge for the U.S. is to protect the U.S. from Islamic terrorists.
On September 11, 2008, the year-long subprime loan crisis and high oil prices are added to the grave challenges the U.S. has to address, though these new problems can undoubtedly influence the whole world directly unlike the Islamic terror attacks on the U.S.
Yet, as the most mysterious part in the Gospel as the human story of Jesus Christ is the description on the day of crucifixion, we have to better review the day when the U.S. was crucified in terms of justice as well as national security.
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Bush’s appearance at the Emma E. Booker Elementary School in Sarasota, Florida, on September 11, 2001 had been in the planning stages since August [Booker web site], but was only publicly announced on the morning of September 7. [White House, 9/7/01] Later that same day, 9/11 hijackers Mohamed Atta and Marwan Alshehhi traveled to Sarasota and enjoyed drinks and dinner at a Holiday Inn only two miles down the sandy beach from where Bush was scheduled to stay during his Sarasota visit. [Longboat Observer, 11/21/01, Washington Post, 1/27/02]
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Bush awoke a little before 6:00 a.m. on September 11, pulled on shorts and an old T-shirt and laced up his running shoes. [CBS, 11/1/02] At 6:30 a.m., Bush, a reporter friend, and his Secret Service crew took a four-mile jog in the half-light of dawn around a nearby golf course. [Washington Post, 1/27/02, Washington Post, 09/11/01]
At about the same time Bush was getting ready for his jog, a van carrying several Middle Eastern men pulled up to the Colony’s guard station. The men said they were a television news crew with a scheduled “poolside” interview with the president. They asked for a certain Secret Service agent by name. The message was relayed to a Secret Service agent inside the resort, who hadn’t heard of the agent mentioned or of plans for an interview. He told the men to contact the president’s public relations office in Washington, DC, and had the van turned away. [Longboat Observer, 9/26/01]
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The Secret Service may have foiled an assassination attempt. Two days earlier, Ahmed Shah Massoud, leader of Afghanistan’s Northern Alliance, had been murdered by a similar ruse. Two North African men, posing as journalists from “Arabic News International,” had been requesting an interview with Massoud since late August. Ahmad Jamsheed, Massoud’s secretary, said that by the night of September 8, “they were so worried and excitable, they were begging us.” An interview was arranged for the following day. As it began, a bomb hidden in the video camera exploded, killing the two journalists. Massoud was rushed by helicopter to a hospital in Tajikistan, but was pronounced dead on arrival (although his death was not acknowledged until September 15).
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If Bush wasn’t told while in his limousine, he certainly was told immediately after he got out of it. US Navy Captain Deborah Loewer, the director of the White House Situation Room, was traveling in the motorcade when she received a message from an assistant back in Washington about the first crash. Loewer said that as soon as the car arrived at Booker, she ran quickly over to Bush. “It’s a very good thing the Secret Service knows who I am,” Loewer later said. She told Bush that an aircraft had “impacted the World Trade Center. This is all we know.” [Catholic Telegraph, 12/7/01, AP, 11/26/01]
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Chief of Staff Andrew Card was in a nearby room when he heard the news. He waited until there was a pause in the reading drill to walk in and tell Bush. [Washington Times, 10/7/02, Washington Times, 10/8/02] The children were getting their books from under their seats to read a story together when Card came in. [Daily Mail, 9/8/02] Card whispered to Bush: “A second plane hit the second tower. America is under attack.” [San Francisco Chronicle, 9/11/02] Another account has Card saying: “A second plane has hit the World Trade Center. America is under attack.” [Telegraph, 12/16/01] Accounts vary as to when Card gave Bush the news. Some say 9:05 [Salon 9/11/01, New York Times, 9/16/01 (B), Telegraph, 12/16/01, Albuquerque Tribune, 9/10/02], and some say 9:07. [Washington Post, 9/11/01, Washington Times, 10/8/02] ABC News reporter Ann Compton, who was in the room, said she was surprised by the interruption and “wrote [the time] down in my reporter’s notebook, by my watch, 9:07 a.m.” [ABC News, 9/11/02]
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The reason given why Bush didn’t leave as soon as Card told him the news is: “Without all the facts at hand, George Bush had no intention of upsetting the schoolchildren who had come to read for him.” [MSNBC, 10/29/02] Advisor Karl Rove said, “The President thought for a second or two about getting up and walking out of the room. But the drill was coming to a close and he didn’t want to alarm the children.” [ABC, 9/11/02] This excuse is patently absurd, given the security risks and importance of Bush being informed and making decisions as Commander in Chief. Nor was the drill coming to a close: one drill had ended and another was about to begin—it was a perfect time to simply say, “Excuse me” and leave the room.
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Once he was out of the classroom, did Bush immediately leave Booker? No. He stayed in the adjacent room with his staff, calling Vice President Cheney and National Security Advisor Rice, and preparing a speech. [Telegraph, 12/16/01, St. Petersburg Times 9/8/02] Incredibly, even as uncertain information began to surface, suggesting that more planes had been hijacked (eventually 11 planes would be suspected) [CBS, 9/11/02], Bush was allowed to make his remarks at 9:30—exactly the time and place stated on his advance schedule. [Federal News Service, 9/10/01, see the transcript of his speech here] Why hasn’t Bush’s security staff been criticized for their completely inexplicable decision to stay at the school? And why didn’t Bush’s concern for the children extend to not making them and the rest of the 200 or so people at the school terrorist targets?
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At 9:16, NORAD was notified that Flight 93 had been hijacked, and at 9:24 it was notified that Flight 77 had also been hijacked and was heading toward Washington (though, as discussed above, the hijacking was known long before this). [NORAD, 9/18/01]
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By 9:35, Bush’s motorcade was ready to take him to the Sarasota airport where Air Force One was waiting……Security conducted an extra-thorough search of all the baggage for the other passengers, delaying takeoff until 9:55. [St. Petersburg Times, 9/8/02 (B)]
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Air Force One left Offutt around 4:30 p.m. [MSNBC, 9/22/01, CNN, 9/12/01, Telegraph, 12/16/01] and landed at Andrews Air Force Base at 6:34 p.m., escorted by two F-15 fighters and one F-16. [CNN, 9/11/01] Bush then took the Marine One helicopter to the White House [Salon 9/11/01], arriving shortly before 7:00 p.m. [CNN, 9/12/01, Telegraph, 12/16/01, AP, 8/19/02]
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Around 9:00 p.m., Bush met with his full National Security Council, followed roughly half an hour later by a meeting with a smaller group of key advisors. Bush and his advisors had already decided bin Laden was behind the attacks. CIA Director Tenet told Bush that al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan were essentially one and the same. [Washington Post, 1/27/02]
Before going to sleep around 11:30 p.m., Bush wrote in his diary, “The Pearl Harbor of the 21st century took place today…. We think it’s Osama bin Laden.” [Washington Post, 1/27/02]
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http://www.historycommons.org/essay.jsp?article=essayaninterestingday
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The above site also reads:
Needless to say, in the anniversary hoopla, Bush and other leaders were described as “resolute,”“brave,”“strong,” and so forth. Even the minor level of media criticism just after 9/11 that led to several reporters losing their jobs was absent. The topic of Bush’s behavior on 9/11 has been barely mentioned in the media since.
However, what I want is detailed reports on behaviors on Sept. 11, 2001 of Mr. Barack Obama and Mr. John McCain as well as Mr. Joe Biden and Ms. Sarah Palin.
Were they resolute, brave, strong, and some such, too, on the occasion?
Until AlQaeda members and Mr. Osama bin Laden become friends of the United States, the U.S. will have to be engaged in the War on Terror.
And, no matter how much the ensuing subprime loan crisis and higher oil prices add other burdens on U.S. citizens as well as global consumers, the “War on Terror” is still hung on a huge and invisible but globally-sensed crucifix at the Pentagon and the World Trade Center.
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I was working somewhere near Tokyo in the night of September 11, 2001, with a TV set turned on and tuned to a night news program.
First I thought it was a big fire in a public building in Washington D.C.
Then, I realized another big fire was happening in New York.
Indeed, I was working, facing a computer screen.
The TV report also said that the second plane hit another WTC tower.
At this point, I think I stopped the work and faced fully the TV screen.
I might have recalled then that on September 1, 2001, namely ten days before, a fire occurred in a small building containing pubs and shops in Shin-jyuku Ward, Tokyo, leaving 44 people dead.
It is because then I regularly worked near Shin-jyuku, though not for any entertainment business.
Whom I feel sorry for are millions of people who were alive before September 2001 but are not now all over the world.
And I hope that all of them are now in Heaven.
(Beethoven - Symphony No. 5:
http://www.geocities.jp/ssiq150/akogarenomeikyoku/a013_unnmei_01.html )
Rev 9:11 And they had a king over them, which is the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue hath his name Apollyon.
Rev 9:12 One woe is past; and, behold, there come two woes more hereafter.
Rev 9:13 And the sixth angel sounded, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar which is before God,
Rev 9:14 Saying to the sixth angel which had the trumpet, Loose the four angels which are bound in the great river Euphrates.