9/11

The collapse of the World Trade Center has been subject to intense public scrutiny over the 20 years since the centre’s twin towers were struck by aircraft hijacked by terrorists. Both collapsed within two hours of impact, prompting several investigations and spawning a variety of conspiracy theories.

Construction on the World Trade Center 1 (the North Tower) and World Trade Center 2 (the South Tower) began in the 1960s. They were constructed from steel and concrete, using a design that was groundbreaking at the time. Most high-rise buildings since have used a similar structure.

The 20th anniversary of 9/11, September 11, 2011, coincides in the same week with two other manifestations of Islamist terrorism: the capture of power by the Taliban in Afghanistan, the group whose objective is to create an Islamic State, and the opening of the trial of Islamist terrorists in the 19th-century Palais de Justice in Paris, a venue to accommodate the large numbers of people interested. The events are reminders, like others, such as the July 7, 2005, coordinated suicide attacks in London that targeted commuters traveling on the transport system; train bombing in Madrid in 2004; Christmas day 2020 in Berlin; and in Vienna November 2020, that the democratic West is involved in a global struggle to defeat Islamist extremism and terrorism.

On Friday, September 10, 2021, the Philadelphia chapter of the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is presenting a panel discussion entitled “Remember Pearl Harbor to Never Forget 9/11: Teaching Japanese American and Muslim American Histories.” There in a nutshell is much of what has gone wrong in our nation’s response to the 9/11 jihad attacks, and why we are so drastically on the wrong path now.

On the 20th anniversary of 9/11, let’s remember the brave men and women who fought back against al-Qaeda.

It’s the 20th anniversary of one of the darkest days of modern times. We all know what happened. We’ve witnessed it over and over, on a loop, the gleaming machines of the modern age transformed into weapons against the greatest city on Earth. That spectacle of death is once again everywhere. Once more we are invited to feel the only thing you’re meant to feel about 9/11 – shock, dread, a visceral sense of powerlessness in the face of this most apocalyptic of terror attacks. But there’s something else we can feel too, and which we should insist on feeling today especially: pride. Pride in the heroes who, in their various different ways, stood up to the Islamist death cult that visited America that day.

It was an eerie scene.

But for the activity of the rescue and recovery personnel and the rumbling machinery they used, it was a still, quiet night. Too still and quiet for Manhattan at any hour. This part of the city was closed for blocks around to all but those with passes indicating they should be here.

I was one of them, and at this moment I stood atop FDNY Engine 10 Ladder 10 looking out on what had once been the World Trade Center as one of the firefighters explained the operations taking place before us under something like stadium lights.

It’s almost a cliche, hackneyed even. A big event happens, and people say they will never forget where they were when they heard about this or that.

But I suspect nearly everyone around the world above the age of 30 really does remember where they were when they heard about, then watched in real time, the most audacious, most dreadful terrorist attack on the United States unfold.

Over the past few days, I have been talking to people not only who remember where they were, but how it upended their lives

Have you ever wondered what American schools teach about 9/11? Here is a partial answer. I’ve reviewed five of the most popular American history textbooks for high school.