I’m writing this on September 10, so I don’t know what tomorrow will bring as we observe the Twentieth year since America was attacked by foreign terrorists intent on destroying our financial system as well as the seat of government and the headquarters of our military.
The succeeded in bring down both high towers of the World Trade Center as well as several other buildings. They succeeded in attacking, but not destroying the Pentagon.
Americans rose to the challenge and prevented the attack on the seat of government by crashing the plane they were on into the ground in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. It’s not an overstatement to refer to all of those people as heroes. We owe them a debt that we will never be able to repay.
As the twin towers collapsed into rubble, I estimated that about 10,000 people were dying at the very moment. That was one time that I was glad to be wrong. A far lesser number died that day, due again to heroic action by public safety officers and other people who sacrificed their lives to save others.
Sadly, the dying from the WTC attacks continues 20 years later. The CDC has a website for people who were affected by the toxic soup that permeated the air that day and for many weeks after.
Sadly, the City of New York is so far refusing to compensate some EMS workers who are suffering the after effects of the toxic exposure. New York City continues it’s long practice of treating EMS workers as Third Class Citizens. Less pay, worse working conditions, fewer benefits, and disdain from many of their bosses at FDNY.
Why the 9/11 Death Toll Is Still Rising Today
According to information supplied to Newsweek by the National Institute for Occupational Safety & Health (NIOSH), part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 3,946 members of the World Trade Center Health Program, which supports first responders and survivors on-site during and after the 9/11 attacks, have died.
This article was written last year, so the death toll has no doubt increased since then. That’s a lot more deaths than those that occurred on the day of the attack.
After the attacks President George W. Bush vowed to bring the people who planned the attack to justice. When the Taliban refused to turn over Osama bin Laden by the date demanded by President Bush, the United States and other nations went to war.
The Taliban were defeated in short order, and a new government was installed. The US, England, Germany, Australia, France, Canada, and other nations stayed on to conduct an ultimately futile project to rebuild Afghanistan into a modern nation. Note that I am not criticizing any of the people involved in this. It was a worthy goal and much of it went well.
Unfortunately more of it seems to have gone poorly. President Biden precipitously and prematurely pulled out military support for the Afghan military. That included pulling out military forces before evacuating civilian personnel.
That was a recipe for disaster and disaster is exactly what we got. The Afghan military melted away like an bowl of ice cream on a 90 degree day. The Taliban regained control of most of the country and billions of dollars worth is high tech military equipment. Meanwhile, American and allied civilian personnel were trapped and abandoned by a feckless President, cowardly Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, clueless Secretary of Defense, and morally bankrupt Secretary of State.
All of whom played Mickey the Dunce when it came to explaining how such a catastrophe happened and who was responsible.
The main cost of this debacle is measured in lives lost or permanently disrupted by members of several nations militaries and support services. All of which seems to have sacrificed in vain. That’s the real tragedy of this disastrous turn of events.
The real cost of the loss of billons of dollars of military equipment is the fact that much of it will make it’s way to our nation’s enemies and will cost more lives and misery in the future.
In addition, the incompetent President has allowed thousands of unvetted Afghani and other “refugees” into this country without any sort of vetting. No doubt many of them are legitimate, but I also have no doubt that some of them are disguised enemies who come here to conduct terrorist attacks.
Again, the incompetents with their mitts on the levers of power in this nation will cause death and misery because of their complete inability to perform the basic functions of government. The first and foremost of which is to protect the citizens of the nation against all enemies, foreign and domestic.
I don’t know what tomorrow will bring, but I won’t be even a bit surprised if there is at the least an attempt to attack the United States itself and/or US interests abroad.
I’ll keeping an ear on the news all day tomorrow as I go about my business.
I won’t watch any of the commemoration ceremonies as I need no reminders of what happened that day in the ever receding past.
As far as action, I am making a recurring donation to the Tunnels To Towers Foundation. They do good things for people hurt fighting the War Against Islamofascism. If that’s not your cup of tea, find another charity you think worthy and donate.
When I say it’s the least we can do for people who made tremendous sacrifices, I mean it’s literally the least we can do.
The political leadership of our nation betrayed them, but we can’t.