Turning Point 9/11 and the War on Terror
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@majorrage said in Turning Point 9/11 and the War on Terror:
I have a borderline sick level of interest in the twin towers part of 9/11. Can't explain why. I'm probably well into 1000 hours of reading / watching about it.
I've always found it difficult to explain how impressed I was by the simplicity of the plan and its execution. I can admire that and also feel considerable sadness and empathy (unusual for me) for the first responders and people trapped.
It's one of the few memories indelibly etched in my brain too: Living in the mess, in my room when a mate comes and tells me that a plane has hit the WTC. Go down the hall to the tv room and watch with a bunch of other officers while discussing the terrible accident. Have a cigarette and thinking about work the next day. See the second plane hit and silence. I turned to the room and said "well boys, the world as we know it has changed. We're going to be busy from now on".
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@donsteppa said in Turning Point 9/11 and the War on Terror:
Good point, that is something very significant that I forgot (among other things, the physics of the collision with the iceberg, at least as it's traditionally described and shown on screen, don't quite work.)
I'll admit I do look at it completely with any conspiracy theory hats off. I don't believe a word of them & believe it played out as we saw.
Have there been any estimates of how many died on the ground near the WTC from being (voluntarily) too close? Emergency responders are horrifically understandable, but it sounds like a few people stayed too close with little need. Yep, in hindsight it's surprising that people left and then went back into the South tower (and that order not to evacuate) while jumpers were visible on a precariously burning massive skyscraper next door. The benefits of hindsight though I suppose...
Not that I've seen honestly. I imagine that's impossible to count really.
One that also caught my attention reading the articles in the last few days; the groups heading upwards hoping for rooftop rescue. For the North tower that's completely understandable given the lack of alternatives. And for the South tower it's understandable as well I guess, except you want to somehow shout at them to force a way down Stairwell A while they still can...
Yeah, if you are trapped you have to play what's in front of you I guess. Up or Down. One of the interviews on the Nat Geo show the guy goes down the lift then as stepping out, they all agree to go back to their office. I just can't fathom decision. Plane has flown into building right beside you. Get the fuck out of the area!!
@antipodean said in Turning Point 9/11 and the War on Terror:
I've always found it difficult to explain how impressed I was by the simplicity of the plan and its execution. I can admire that and also feel considerable sadness and empathy (unusual for me) for the first responders and people trapped.
Yes totally agree. Very simple plan but astonishingly effective. All broadcast live on global TV.
It's one of the few memories indelibly etched in my brain too: Living in the mess, in my room when a mate comes and tells me that a plane has hit the WTC. Go down the hall to the tv room and watch with a bunch of other officers while discussing the terrible accident. Have a cigarette and thinking about work the next day. See the second plane hit and silence. I turned to the room and said "well boys, the world as we know it has changed. We're going to be busy from now on".
I was at Credit Suisse in London. We were told we couldn't leave the office because of it. I was in a real lackies job so we went to the trading floor to watch the TV's. We were then kicked off them and told to return our desks. Had 3 housemates in Canary Wharf tower all completely shitting themselves (for those that don't know that at the time was the tallest and most prominent office tower in London). Eventually we were told we could leave, so we immediately went to the pub and continued watching it there. Absolutely surreal day.
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@majorrage said in Turning Point 9/11 and the War on Terror:
we were told we could leave
Who was ordering you all around? If just managers, etc - pretty fucken surprised you listened!
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@bones said in Turning Point 9/11 and the War on Terror:
@majorrage said in Turning Point 9/11 and the War on Terror:
we were told we could leave
Who was ordering you all around? If just managers, etc - pretty fucken surprised you listened!
Combination of messages coming from Building & Canary Wharf Security through our managers. To be honest, we didn't really question them as we were all a bit deer headlights.
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@majorrage said in Turning Point 9/11 and the War on Terror:
I'll admit I do look at it completely with any conspiracy theory hats off. I don't believe a word of them & believe it played out as we saw.
Agreed. That any official report or inquiry into a disaster rarely gets every last detail right (that dead men don’t tell tales cliche again) doesn’t mean conspiracy. I’m wondering if there’s been a major disaster yet that doesn’t have some ‘alternative’ theory or book written on it…
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@majorrage said in Turning Point 9/11 and the War on Terror:
...He added that the Port Authority was telling him not to evacuate and to order people to stay at their desks.
“What’d you say?” Hill asked.
“I said, ‘Piss off, you son of a bitch,’ “ Rescorla replied. “Everything above where that plane hit is going to collapse, and it’s going to take the whole building with it. I’m getting my people the fuck out of here.”
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At the time I'd always meant to read into some of the human interest stories as they emerged months later, but for whatever reason I think I hid from them a bit after the weeks of saturation coverage of the impacts and collapses, and then the various conspiracies began emerging. As Mariner notes - still mindblowing 20 years on.
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Lots of footage that I hadn't seen before & it's absolutely compelling, if not completely shocking & depressing.I have a borderline sick level of interest in the twin towers part of 9/11. Can't explain why. I'm probably well into 1000 hours of reading / watching about it.
MICK FROM HERE (it seems I have mucked up my citing of the post to which I m responding).
I was a boy when John Kennedy was assassinated - the fear we felt then and the likelihood of world war was repeated by my children on the phone at 6 am the next day in 2001.
The impact of Kennedy's death was similarly profound and I too have done what you describe throughout life - reports, books, documentaries on Kennedy, the lot. I ceased when I concluded the truth will never be known (too many competing scripts, too many players, too many agendas).
The import of, and madness behind, the Twin Towers attacks will quickly fade and be obscured. The USA has been busy surrendering since and the trainee intelligentsia at the country's universities have been well coached in accepting the superior legitimacy of their nation's enemies.
The other point of interest to me - "the Port Authority was telling him not to evacuate" - is that despite the enormous resources directed by corporates and bureaucrats to crisis planning, how to manage scary horrid event events, weekend workshops - the invented vernacular and the para-military garb of the experts - there was chaos from the very beginning. 37 page emergency response plans favoured by the likes of your quoted Port Authority Safety Committee are useful then only to prop doors open.
In the main people are saved by individuals with initiative and personal authority in their manner, who "play what is in front of them".
For example, when Cyclone Tracy flattened Darwin in 1974 Prime Minister Whitlam sent Major-General Alan Stretton in (with three wars under his belt) with both responsibility and authority to act. Stretton strode in with his "Lead, follow or get out of the way" mindset, heard what the medicos had to say about health risk and evacuated 75% of the population of about 50,000 within 5 days. "Where are you taking us" they might ask, his people would answer "We'll both know when we land".
Try that in the modern world and those whose lives are being saved would bleat "mah rights", "due process", "no consultation", "oh the mental anguish - where's me compensation, eh?"
I have witnessed the subordination of purpose to process ramp up during the last 25 years or so and this alone has greatly diminished the decision making capability of a couple of generations now - stupid, stupid, stupid!
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@donsteppa rescoria was an amazing bloke. His life is an adventure book
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Ep 2 last night. More about response than anything.
But when they got to the point where people started jumping...
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I struggle to watch anything to do with it, for obvious reasons. Wife's ex boyfriend was editor of the HKG newspaper and called us to turn on the tele news after the first one went in. Saw everything after that live.
The whole thing completely changed my life and profession.
I hate the fluffybunnies for it.
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@snowy similar experience - sitting in the home we'd owned for less than a year, with a wedding set down for 7th September in 2002.
Turned over to the late night news, which was showing live pictures of a fire in one of the towers. I knew fuck all about New York but it was a big building and a big fire. Looked awful. Called in the to-be-wife, and we sat together just as the second plane hit. Thought WW3 was about to start.
"Shitscared" summed it up nicely.
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For those in Australia, or wherever you can find it, there was a doco called "Too Soon: Comedy After 9/11"
https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/video/1935715395518/too-soon-comedy-after-911
EDIT: Gilbert Gottfried... oh man.
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@nta said in Turning Point 9/11 and the War on Terror:
Turned over to the late night news, which was showing live pictures of a fire in one of the towers. I knew fuck all about New York but it was a big building and a big fire. Looked awful. Called in the to-be-wife, and we sat together just as the second plane hit. Thought WW3 was about to start.
What happened was a goddamn tragedy, and utterly unacceptable. That said, the genius was the second plane. No-one saw the first plane; it happened, and people were dealing with that. That got the eyes of the world on the second tower, and those indelible images of tragedy.
The terrorists achieved what they wanted - which was terror. One plane probably doesn't have nearly the same visceral impact
Can't believe it was 20 years already
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@nzzp said in Turning Point 9/11 and the War on Terror:
@nta said in Turning Point 9/11 and the War on Terror:
Turned over to the late night news, which was showing live pictures of a fire in one of the towers. I knew fuck all about New York but it was a big building and a big fire. Looked awful. Called in the to-be-wife, and we sat together just as the second plane hit. Thought WW3 was about to start.
What happened was a goddamn tragedy, and utterly unacceptable. That said, the genius was the second plane. No-one saw the first plane; it happened, and people were dealing with that. That got the eyes of the world on the second tower, and those indelible images of tragedy.
The terrorists achieved what they wanted - which was terror. One plane probably doesn't have nearly the same visceral impact
Can't believe it was 20 years already
the whole plan is staggering in its scale and execution
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Okay I was starting to think this was a US sob story/ jerk off
But Ep 3 has put that to rest
Cheney getting a kicking
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@mariner4life said in Turning Point 9/11 and the War on Terror:
Okay I was starting to think this was a US sob story/ jerk off
But Ep 3 has put that to rest
Cheney getting a kicking
Lots of them are. Continuing into ep4 I might add.
Bureaucracy, eh?
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@mariner4life said in Turning Point 9/11 and the War on Terror:
@nzzp said in Turning Point 9/11 and the War on Terror:
@nta said in Turning Point 9/11 and the War on Terror:
Turned over to the late night news, which was showing live pictures of a fire in one of the towers. I knew fuck all about New York but it was a big building and a big fire. Looked awful. Called in the to-be-wife, and we sat together just as the second plane hit. Thought WW3 was about to start.
What happened was a goddamn tragedy, and utterly unacceptable. That said, the genius was the second plane. No-one saw the first plane; it happened, and people were dealing with that. That got the eyes of the world on the second tower, and those indelible images of tragedy.
The terrorists achieved what they wanted - which was terror. One plane probably doesn't have nearly the same visceral impact
Can't believe it was 20 years already
the whole plan is staggering in its scale and execution
People always talk about the simplicity of the plan, but I am staggered at how many things had to go right not just for one plane to hit the tower, but for two planes and then a third into a fucking pentagon! Think about all the things that had to go right not just on the day with 19 hi-jackers but also in the years leading up to it with everyone else involved and the flying lessons etc.
Still mind-blowing
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Has anyone else watched 9/11: Inside the President’s War Room? It’s on Apple TV. I remember at the time we all though George W Bush was a complete idiot. The Michael Moore film reinforced the idea that he was an indecisive fool talking to kids while America was attacked and didn’t have a clue what he was supposed to do.
Now I know the narrative of a doco like this is going to be skewed towards the participants as a condition of their agreeing to be filmed but still I’m surprised at how well George W comes across. I had no idea that the lousy comms they had meant that effectively Dick Cheney was in charge because he was still in Washington. The President’s phone line kept dropping out and while most real time info was coming from the TV news crews on the spot Air Force One didn’t have satellite TV so they only got intermittent signal as they passed over large towns. Although Bush wanted to get back to Washington he was effectively overridden by the Secret Service. They also, due to a miscommunication, believed AF1 was an active target but still it was nearly an hour before fighter cover arrived.
The most striking thing was the gap between what I assumed was the level of communication and control sophistication available to the President at the time compared with what they actually had. They had to move most of the people out of the Situation Room because people were getting ill and they realised they were running out of oxygen for Christ’s sake.
Anyway it’s worth a watch.
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@jc yep, it’s a great doc and W comes across extremely well.
It’s another eye opener into how much I’ve been sucked into a democratic loving media over the years. He comes across articulate, smart and really on top of the situation.
The lack of tech is really eye opening. Kind of blows some of the spiels you hear about AF1 in movies etc.