to still be shocked at the 9/11 attacks

[AuntiePickleBottom]

i am watching a programme on itv1 about the 9/11 attacks and it still sends shivers down my spine.

YABU to be shocked though.

SiamoFottuti I disagree... I think it is still very shocking footage despite the number of times we've all seen it. When an airliner at full speed seems to almost melt into the side of the building as it disappears on impact, it's still an extermely shocking image. Knowing there are real people on that plane and in that building and that it's not some big budget Hollywood special effect makes it very different to other well-worn images. Personally, I hope I never stop feeling that sense of shock.

I think it's very important that we remind others what happened that day the same way we do with other man-made catastrophes. Prior to 9/11, terrorist acts were things involved cowards operating at some distance in a balaclava, blowing up a pub or a military band, or kidnapping some judge or other. Things changed when the terrorists were happy to 'be' the bomb rather than simply plant the things...

the programme reduced me to tears i watched the fireman's story, i just sat there thinking how could you even comprehend how they must have felt knowing they had to climb all those stairs and try to get out as many people as possible with no idea the buildings were to collapse.
just seeing those buildings going down knowing in an instant you had just watched thousands of life's being snuffed out.
i remember being a teenager just got in from school and my mum has the news on and i thought oh thats bad a plane hit a building. i didn't realize the severity at 14 of what was really unfolding. it wasn't until that evening when reports of approx how many had died. the sheer desperation of people jumping as they had no choice. i think the fear and desparation and bravery are what makes me upset, how it does not even bare thinking about being it a situation like that.

"you don't have to be a nutty conspiracy theorist"

And that's another reason why the footage has to be replayed and the story retold. In only 10 years, the day's events have been twisted and turned by the conspiracy theorists so much that mythology is in danger of supplanting reality.

What shocks me is that people can be so distraught over 9/11 (and don't get me wrong, it was a terrible event, an awful loss of life and so on and so forth), and yet so blase of similar things happening in other parts of the world. Why is it so much more shocking when civilians died in America, than when civilians die in air strikes in Iraq and Afghanistan?
The US has such an awful record on killing around the world, and yet was so massively shocked that someone might want to strike back on their home turf. I can't say its that surprising. Its terrible that it happened, sickening and awful, but not, by my definition, shocking.

A life taken should have the same worth no matter what country you are in, but the sad fact is they don't. I find that shocking.

'reality'....lol. Seriously, nothing about the official story adds up there are MASSIVE holes in this story....the official story we were told is the mythology.

I say again, look at the this list of people who say we've been lied to

patriotsquestion911.com/

then just try and dismiss THEM as conspiracy theorists

Cogito I think that will happen regardless - how many documentaries are there on the Holocaust, showing detailed information from the Reich itself, and people still don't believe it happened. Conspiracy theories give people a sense of control, an easy scape goat, and an easy way out of doing anything (if it's all control by the powerful Illuminati, how can we do anything?).

I'm not 'shocked' by the footage, the footage of the events at the time and now give me a mixed sense of helplessness and a desire to do something with the time I have.

Actually, these days I also find myself more and more irritated as people call it America's first terrorist attack (um, no) and the complete forgetting that it wasn't only Americans in the tower/plans (I'm from the States myself, and the line is always 'this many Americans died in X' when really there were people from all over the world caught up in it - makes me wonder if they are really just counting Americans or they're counting everyone who died as American). And America hasn't really seemed to have learned anything from it, just uses it as an excuse to do what it pleases even more. No one seems to have really learned anything from it, really.

I havn't read the whole thread (so sorry if i am repeating what others have said).

I watched most of the programme last night and it made me feel sick, it had more impact on me then it did on the day it happened (maybe because i was young and nieve when it happened or maybe because it seemed so unreal on the day it happened?). Watching people jump from the top floors was heart breaking and i'm not sure it was right to show it in so much detail (the sound of the bodies hitting the ground), these were brave people who had to make the choice of staying in the building to die or jumping to their death . I feel so sorry for evertyone involved and the families and friends of those who were killed.

"Why is it so much more shocking when civilians died in America, than when civilians die in air strikes in Iraq and Afghanistan?"

Because it happened in such a particularly dramatic & visual fashion perhaps? The Twin Towers as part of the NYC skyline were a world landmark on a par with Big Ben or the Taj Mahal - familiar to millions. It's sad when innocent people die anywhere but, as human beings, we naturally connect emotionally most with people or places that we feel we know.

Its a bit that, but mainly its because they are American and developed world and not inconsequential foreigners that nobody cares about.

@Bumblebo.... I know that trying to engage with a 'truther' is a fairly futile exercise, but the fact that a few people or even a few million people seriously think that the US government persuaded armies of (as yet unidentified, conscience-free and impressively silent) workmen to plant explosives in two of the biggest buildings in NYC does not make it any more credible.

Siamofottuti... And what is wrong with that exactly? There are billions of people in the world and we'd by hypocritical at best to say that we cared equally for each and every one of them. Most of us really only care for friends, family and people we know. We can only be sympathetic to the plight of others. I felt shock at the images I saw on 11th Sept 2001 because they were shocking images ... .not because I have some special affection for Americans.

Bumblebo, I've just skimmed that 'Patriots Question 9/11' site and am unimpressed by many of its arguments. Commander Ted Muga makes some particularly dim-witted macho jock remarks:

"... there is no way that a pilot would give up an airplane to hijackers. ... I mean, hell, a guy doesn't give up a TV remote control much less a complicated 757. And so to think that pilots would allow a plane to be taken over by a couple of 5 foot 7, 150 pound guys with a one-inch blade boxcutter is ridiculous."

That sounds like something from the schoolyard, and suggests he has some kind of bizarre investment in the herioc masculinity of airline pilots, and no understanding whatsoever of terrorism.

I agree with those who raise concerns about the way the footage of the planes and the WTC collapse is being repeated over and over on TV, as if it was a trailer for some high-budget glossy disaster film that doesn't really involve 3000 people's deaths. And also with those who worry that it makes affluent first worlders in particular blasé about equally appalling, but less photogenic or media-accessible events taking place in the rest of the world.

Whats wrong with it? Well quite a lot I would have thought, especially when such feelings are used to support illegal wars and the killing of a great number of people.

Of course there is a hierarchy of caring, you care more for your own family, then for your own kind etc etc. But seriously, you don't think there is something inherently wrong with the huge number of people who can look at footage of people bombed and dying in Libya, in Iraq etc etc and feel practically nothing, and then look at footage of 9/11 and be overwhelmed by horror, sickened and appalled by such shocking terrorism?
Honestly?

I've been trying to explain it to my daughter who's 7 - she was asking about it yesterday.

I was so upset when it happened and yes, it's still as horrific now. I can't imagine what it must be like for the poor people who've had to assume their loved ones are dead and have never been able to bury them.

BumbleBo, what you are saying is either flat-out untrue or massively misleading.

"G.Bush brother was in charge of security at the towers"
Untrue. He was a non-exec director of a company that provided some security services to the WTC. Other companies were responsible for other security services. He was not "in charge" of anything in particular.

"he ordered that sniffer dogs be removed weeks before the attacks."
Untrue. It wasn't his decision to downgrade the unusually high alert they'd had for a short time back to the more usual alert status. And there were still sniffer dogs working in the WTC. Indeed, one was killed in the attack.

"People working in the towers heard loads of drilling going on all over 2 weeks running up to the attacks (explosives being put in)"
Misleading. They were big sites, there was often construction work going on. There is no evidence of explosives, no discovery of explosives that failed to fire, no discovery of the miles of wiring needed to connect them all up, no-one in the WTC saw any evidence of explosives being installed, and no-one has come forward admitting they were part of the huge team of people who would be needed to actually carry out such an enormous job. Oh, and it's a flat-out stupid way to achieve what 'they' supposedly want to achieve.

"Finding out the steel can't melt with jet fuel"
Misleading. Steel won't melt in a jet fuel fire but then it didn't have to melt. All it had to do was weaken and the fires were easily hot enough for that to happen.

"only very advanced explosives"
Untrue and misleading. There weren't any explosives required to bring down the towers. Anyway, explosives don't melt things, they destroy them with shock waves.

"...that there was no wreckage found when flight 93 crashed into a field "
Untrue. There was a lot of wreckage found in and around the hole it dug into the ground.

But, hey, since when have facts ever got in the way of a good conspiracy theory?

this is NOT about saying 9/11 didn't happen - it's asking WHAT happened and WHO did it.

When some of the MOST senior U.S. Military & Intelligence people are saying we are not being told the truth...shouldn't we listen?

Quotes from 'Former Commanding General of U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command' on 'patriotsquestion911.com/' :-

"I've never believed that it was an airplane since I've looked at the photographs. Up until the time I looked at the photographs, I accepted what was being said. After I looked at it -- NO WAY! ?

We pride ourselves with the "free press." I do not believe the "free press" is free any more. It's very expensive. It's very expensive. And the press is saying what they have been told to say about this.

Now, do I have proof of that? No. But I believe that what is being what certainly the the stories that were told -- all about 9/11 were false. I mean, you take a look at the buildings falling down. They didn't fall down because airplanes hit them. They fell down because of explosives went off inside. Demolition. Look at Building 7, for God's sake. It didn't fall down to its side. It didn't fall to this direction or that direction; just like the two Towers. ?

When you look at the temperatures that you can create with fuel in a gas tank or a fuel tank of an airplane, and then you investigate the amount of heat that would be required to melt to melt the superstructure of the buildings that came tumbling down, when you put all of that together, the one thing that shows; It does not match the facts. What is it they do not want the public to know?

there are numerous scientific programmes which explain in detail how the buildings collapse. it's no conspiracy.

do you really think that (if it was a cover up) that everyone would be able to keep quiet?

it happened as reported, get over it.

"something inherently wrong with the huge number of people who can look at footage of people bombed and dying in Libya, in Iraq etc etc and feel practically nothing"

Where is this footage of people being bombed? All I've seen recently on TV has been ground level running battles with bullets whizzing about and reporters in flak jackets ducking for cover. It's horrific that there are people being killed, tortured or executed and of course we feel something hearing about it. But we tend to see santisied pictures after the event and that's a lot less powerful on the emotions than the real-time cumulative experience of mounting horror we all had on 9/11....

It because when the people dying are 'others' we can pretend that they deserve it really. But when the people are like us, we naturally have more empathy.

There was a photo on the front page of a newspaper a few years ago, that was of a woman and her newborn daughter held close to her chest in death, they had been killed in a NATO strike. A few years previously I would have shrugged and thought 'that's sad', but as I had had a baby myself I thought of all the effort that woman had gone to, to grow and birth that baby, how the baby was curled protectively into her mother's chest and I placed myself and my baby into the photo and it enraged me that they had been killed for no real reason. Empathy is selfish, I cared more about them because they were like me.

I don't believe the conspiracy theories - I've heard a lot on both sides. The conspiracy theories don't stand up to scrutiny.

Would a government harm its own people? Yes, I expect so. But I believe 9/11 was the work of terrorists.

BumbleBo... What are you going on about? The 'temperature you can create in a fuel tank'?.... The fuel tanks ignited the massive fires which then had an hour and a half feeding on all the lovely flammable stuff inside skyscrapers to build the temperature up to steel-weakening levels.

Conspirasists claim the towers just fell neatly down. Indeed from a distance tit looke dlike they did. But when you see the footage closer up you see that actaually it wasn't quite like that at all. Bits were crumbling all around, huge slabs mixed up in that huge dust cloud. etc.

But hey, these are people that call a terrorist act that killed thousands of innocent people a "story" after all - why let any form of truth get in the way of a good yarn

BumbleBo, if you prefer to take the word of a retired general who:
a) wasn't at the Pentagon when the plane hit it,
b) did not subsequently visit the Pentagon and examine the crash site, and
c) is apparently unable to view the many and varied pictures of bits of aircraft (note, not missile) scattered in and around the building

over the testimony of people sat in cars and parks nearby who saw the fucking plane hit the fucking Pentagon with their own fucking eyes, or the experienced crash-site investigators who pulled bits of aircraft out of the building and matched up the component serial numbers then, quite frankly, you're a loon.