SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 2021

By the Editors

Twenty years ago, 19 terrorists of the organization al-Qaeda, including those secretly trained to operate passenger jetliners highjacked four U.S. airliners and crashed two into the World Trade Center towers and another into the west side of the Pentagon. Passengers stormed the cockpit of United Airlines Flight 93, crashing it into the ground in Shanksville, Pennsylvania instead of the terrorists’ intended target, believed to be either the White House or the U.S. Capitol. 

A total of 2,753 people from 115 countries were killed in the attacks, including 343 firefighters and paramedics, 23 New York Police Department officers and 37 Port Authority police officers. U.S. troops killed in Operation Enduring Freedom, the name for President George W. Bush’s war on international terrorism, stands at 2,343. The U.S. began bombing Afghanistan 26 days after the 9/11 attacks (statistics by New York magazine). 

New York further notes that 12,962 civil rights complaints were made nationally to the Council on American-Islamic Relations, between 2002 and 2008. But there also was an initial outpouring of sympathy worldwide for the United States, and both its victims and survivors of the terrorist attacks, at least until the Bush 43 administration’s war on terrorism extended to invasions of both Iraq and Afghanistan, renewing the pre-attack divide. 

For Saturday’s anniversary of the attacks, The Hustings asked staff editors and contributors to reflect on the awful events of Tuesday, September 11, 2001. Their remarks are in the center column below. To respond with your own comments and reflections, please email editors@thehustings.news.

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Fighter-Jets Hitting the Sound Barrier

I was a reporter in D.C. and was due on Capitol Hill for a hearing. I never made it there. About 30 minutes after the Pentagon attack, I heard what seemed to be a loud explosion that immediately put me on edge. I later learned it came from fighter jets hitting the sound barrier and scrambling into place. My wife was working downtown a half-mile from the Capitol and it took a while to connect as cell service was limited, but all turned out O.K. for us.

It was a harrowing day, and it ushered in a long period where we monitored the latest color-coded terrorism alerts and made contingency plans in case of an emergency. I’ve lived in the Washington area for decades and it was a period unlike I’d ever seen.

--Charles Dervarics

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Fearful of Our Response

In the aftermath, we, as country, weren’t at our best. Sure, some people gave blood for a few days and the first responders did an impeccable job and deserve everything we can give them still, but what I remember from that time is being more fearful of our response as a nation (at the time, we hadn’t made a decision about who we would retaliate against – I knew it would be a Middle Eastern nation), as well as the blind rage of my usually sensible coworkers and random people on my daily commute.

Everyone wanted retribution. I failed to see the point of retribution because those who were responsible were dead and incinerated. They were out of our reach. Everything outside of that was speculation and I still believe in the rule of law and due process – even for nations. You don’t get to bomb or invade over mere speculation. We went into Afghanistan because bin Laden was supposed to be there, we found him in Pakistan. So are we O.K. with that? I’m not.

I wasn’t angry at the time. I was terrified at what the country was going to become when it operates from a place of vengeance and fear.

--Nic Woods

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Airplanes

My mom never called me at work. Perhaps it was because my dad had worked in a factory all of his life and getting him to a phone during working hours was a challenge. Even though she knew I was in an office with just three other people, even though she knew that I was the “boss,” even though she knew I had a phone on my desk, she didn’t call.

Until the morning of 9/11.

She knew I flew a lot for my job and she wanted to make sure that I was in town. She was afraid I was on one of those planes.

Sons and daughters were lost on that day.

My parents flew rarely during their lives. My mom didn’t like it. My dad wished they’d gone more.

In early October, on one of those fall days that blesses Detroit with wonderful weather, my dad and I stood on my patio. He looked to the sky and saw one of the few planes that was making its turn for a final approach into Metro Airport.

He shook his head. Sadly.

—Stephen Macaulay

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Disbelief

Disbelief is all I could muster. To think that two dozen men could wreak that kind of havoc on a stunned country in a single day! And that one day has led to trillions of dollars of American wealth being spent on a 20-year-long unwinnable war. Worst single day in American history since December 7th, 1941.

--Jim McCraw

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9/11 and Today

We all remember where we were, those of us old enough, when the tragedy of 9-11 occurred. I was the CEO of a medical transcription company located in Pittsburgh and got a call that morning from my mom, Eleanor Iwinski, who told me a plane had crashed into one of the Twin Towers. In an earlier career I had made hundreds of visits to those towers doing negotiations with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. Friends and acquaintances worked there, but I assured my Mother that it wasn't something to worry about as the design of the towers made it unlikely that a small plane -- my assumption -- would have much effect. She called back a few minutes later and said I should get to a television.

I gathered with my team in the conference room and watched with utter shock as the North Tower burned, and then witnessed the strike on the South Tower. It was apparent by now this was no accident and these were not small planes. Shortly after that, the emergency notification system advised that a third plane was flying over Pittsburgh and that people should leave work. Everyone quickly gathered their things and headed home to share the tragedy with their loved ones. It turns out the third plane that briefly flew past Pittsburgh was Flight 93 and it came to rest in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

Billions of words have been shared about the sacrifices made and what heroes did on that horrific day. I cannot adequately add to the poetry of sorrow already expressed.

It would seem to me, however, that the best memorial to those lives taken away and those later sacrificed in far-off lands like Afghanistan and Iraq would be that we, as Americans, would have learned and matured and take a more serious view of our place in the world and the inherent responsibilities that fall upon the most powerful nation on the planet, both economically and militarily.

So where do we stand, 20 years later?

• Our political system is in chaos with the last two elections seriously contested by the losing party and trust in both politicians generally and our system of governance as fallen to all-time lows.

•Those who would challenge us militarily and economically for global dominance have gained ground while we have had a series of increasingly ill-considered global doctrines.

•Our allies no longer trust us and our enemies no longer respect us.

•We undertook a 20-year struggle in Afghanistan to root out terror to protect American people and instead exited in a most ignoble and pathetic fashion, leaving allies and Americans behind along with $85 billion worth of sophisticated military ordnance that will undoubtedly be used to attack Americans as terrorists may now walk across the southern border unhindered.

I do have hopes that these trends can be reversed but it is by no means certain if we continue our Benjamin-Button-like acceleration to immaturity and insignificance.

--David Iwinski