17th anniversary of 9/11

[Flabbibulin]

HBO Canada’s You Are Here: A Come From Away Story is an awesome documentary on the 38 planes that were diverted to Gander NFLD on 9/11- and the subsequent hosting of thousands of passengers for several days. Up on Shaw on Demand right now for free if you’re an HBO subscriber.

[bigtmac19]

The book that inspired the musical is actually really good, The Day the World Came to Town. It was published in 2002 and I read it shortly after it came out. Worth the read.

[Amethyst]

The Broadway musical Come From Away will be playing in Calgary in late March.

[afc wimbledon]

I remember driving across the Oak Street Bridge to Richmond on the 12th and the whole airport was a sea of planes, every runway, even stacked on the grass, Vancouver took all the pacific inbounds on the 11th. There wasn't an inch of space.

[Sliver]

Originally Posted by Flabbibulin

HBO Canada’s You Are Here: A Come From Away Story is an awesome documentary on the 38 planes that were diverted to Gander NFLD on 9/11- and the subsequent hosting of thousands of passengers for several days. Up on Shaw on Demand right now for free if you’re an HBO subscriber.

It's so weird how many accolades Gander gets for doing what literally every other airport community in North America did that day.

[DownInFlames]

Originally Posted by Sliver

It's so weird how many accolades Gander gets for doing what literally every other airport community in North America did that day.

Did those other towns nearly double in population on that day?

[Sliver]

Originally Posted by DownInFlames

Did those other towns nearly double in population on that day?

The households that accepted people may have.

[Jiri Hrdina]

Originally Posted by Sliver

The households that accepted people may have.

It still a great story
Odd thing to dump on

[sa226]

"Literally every other airport community in North America"

Yeah, I don't think so.

Sent from my SM-G950W using Tapatalk

[chockfullofgoodness]

Originally Posted by troutman

Death Toll 9/11 = 2,996

Death Toll Puerto Rico (Hurricane Maria) = 2,975

Both terrible events, but we talk about them quite differently.

One was a natural disaster, the other a premeditated act of terror. Why wouldn't we talk differently about them?

[afc wimbledon]

Originally Posted by Sliver

It's so weird how many accolades Gander gets for doing what literally every other airport community in North America did that day.

Actually no, when the US shut down their airspace everything inbound had to fly to Canada, essentially everything over the North Pole Atlantic and Pacific as they were to far to turn around so it was just Vancouver, Gander, Calgary(?) and Edmonton(?) that took hundreds of flights and thousands of passengers at a moments notice, of course as impressive an act of kindness this was for Vancouver we have a ton of hotels to absorb the bodies and had them bussing into the states pretty much from day one, Gander is tiny and they had to keep there guests for the duration of the crisis, a far more impressive feat

[FireGilbert]

I am currently reading Yuval Noah Harari’s excellent new book 21 Lessons for the 21st Century which has a great chapter on terrorism.

He provides stats showing that more Israelis are killed by car accidents than terrorism and that since 1945 there have been far less European deaths by terrorism than from numerous obscure WWI battles and poses the question of why terrorism is then so effective at causing fear and confusion. The conclusion is that in modern liberal democracies the populous is accustomed to living safe lives free from violence where decisions are made by voting and not by force. A terror attack is then like a coin being thrown into an empty jar. It is a mostly meaningless action that creates a loud noise.

He also provides a good analogy of a terrorist to a fly trying to destroy a china shop. In the case of 9-11 the terrorist fly got into the ear of the American bull causing it to destroy the Middle East china shop.

[Itse]

Foreign Policy published this interesting piece.

Al-Qaeda Won

"For the cost of the lives of 19 terrorists, al Qaeda sparked the global war on terrorism, with its subsequent $2.1 trillion cost and the loss of thousands of American lives. More importantly, they changed the way America thought of itself and the way the world thought of America. They made powerful people believe that the war against Islamist terrorism, a technologically incompetent fringe hiding in caves in the most remote locations in the world, presented a threat comparable to the fascist war machines of World War II. They convinced America that the only way to protect itself from this threat was to suspend civil liberties. Seventeen years later, America is stumbling back from the Middle East, believed by its own people and by the rest of the world to be a defeated occupier. The Taliban is still a force in Afghanistan. The central proposition of radical Islamist movements since Jamal al-Din al-Afghani—that Islam was anti-modernity—was proved to everyone’s satisfaction. The consequences of these changes in mindset were vast, elaborating themselves in ways that would have been inconceivable to bin Laden or to anyone else.

Why did America tell itself such a disastrous story about 9/11?

At the core of the failure was American exceptionalism, the assumption, which in my experience no American escapes entirely, that what happens in the United States matters more than what happens elsewhere. American exceptionalism is a form of political myopia, making perspective nearly impossible, even among the most educated.

The legacy of World War II was also decisive. The military narrative of the liberation of Europe was less important than the story of the reconstruction—America’s overwhelming might underpinning a liberal order. The Bush administration dreamed of a war of liberation, a war against fascism, a war to build liberal democracy, just the kind of war their fathers had waged. The neoconservative fantasies were plugged into images borrowed from documentaries of Europe from their childhoods. From that fantasy, they were able to conjure whatever arguments were needed, even though the struggle against al Qaeda was not even against a state, never mind a system of government."

“No day shall erase you from the memory of time”—has been inscribed on the wall. The dreams of the terrorists are fulfilled: Their victims have given them entry into history.

To this day, the border guards at John F. Kennedy International Airport face all day, every day, a sign that calls for them to remember 9/11. Nothing could define U.S. diathetical defeat more completely.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by chockfullofgoodness

One was a natural disaster, the other a premeditated act of terror. Why wouldn't we talk differently about them?

Exactly. We talk about the Matthew de Groode stabbing murders differently than we'd talk about a May long weekend car crash on highway 2 that killed 5 people. We talk about the Sandy Hook slaughter differently than we talk about the hundreds of American children who drown every year.

It may be irrational to treat deaths differently from one another, but anyone waiting for the day when we react no differently to a family of four being murdered in their home than we do to a family of four dying in a rollover will be waiting a long time.

[CroFlames]

Originally Posted by Sliver

It's so weird how many accolades Gander gets for doing what literally every other airport community in North America did that day.

Gander is a tiny place man. It's crazy how many huge planes landed there and how their community helped the passengers.



Gander became a symbol for Canadian generosity, compassion and friendship around the world and that is a great thing. Other larger communities had the resources to deal with the large influx of planes and passengers.

[blankall]

Originally Posted by Itse

Foreign Policy published this interesting piece.

Al-Qaeda Won

I strongly disagree with this article.


1. Warhawks are nothing new. They didn't arise after 9/11. They've been a consistent part of the American political landscape since America came into being. The plans to invade Iraq were set in place a decade before, during Bush Sr.'s administration. Ousting Hussain had very little to do with the war on terrorism. It was part of a plan to put into place American friendly proxy governments in place of hostile administrations. The USA has consistently been involved in these wars since its inception. If anything, the appetite for these wars has decreased, as the USA would have a much harder time selling one of these wars now that it did 10 years ago. The USA will always have some damage control type involvement in places in like Syria and Libya, but they haven't gone full blown since Iraq. Have they even put new troops on the ground since Iraq? That's 15 years ago. As sad as it is, that may be a record for the USA.

2. Comparing the USA to a fascist country is complete and utter BS. You may not like the USA and it's global influence, but it's a country where freedom of speech and individuality is highly prized.

3. Al Queda was not just a few terrorists in caves. They had total control over Afghanistan and influence in several other major countries. Their influence was steadily increasing and spreading to places like Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. This article discounts 9/11 itself and doesn't even mention the attacks that were thwarted post-911. Al Queda was also far from technologically incompetent. They'd mastered various forms of social media and electronic communications.

This all comes back to the same argument the left has been making for decades, that any decision by the right is based out of fear or greed and their decision is the only logical one. And the right makes the same arguments about the left. It's all just political posturing, as the truth typically lies somewhere in the middle.

[Lubicon]

Originally Posted by afc wimbledon

Actually no, when the US shut down their airspace everything inbound had to fly to Canada, essentially everything over the North Pole Atlantic and Pacific as they were to far to turn around so it was just Vancouver, Gander, Calgary(?) and Edmonton(?) that took hundreds of flights and thousands of passengers at a moments notice, of course as impressive an act of kindness this was for Vancouver we have a ton of hotels to absorb the bodies and had them bussing into the states pretty much from day one, Gander is tiny and they had to keep there guests for the duration of the crisis, a far more impressive feat

238 flights diverted into 17 Canadian airports that day.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Yellow_Ribbon