A Day That Should’ve Been Stopped

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Tomorrow as we remember the tragic events of 9-11 twenty-five years ago which happened in Lower Manhattan, New York, American Airlines Flight 11 flew into the North Tower at 8:46am and United Airlines Flight 175 into the South Tower at 9:03am of the World Trade Center Twin Towers. A bit later American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon, Washington D.C. at 9:37am, this was followed by another cockpit-hijacked jumbo jet, United Airlines Flight 93. Passengers had managed to get wind via phone calls with family of the crashes at the WTC towers and the Pentagon. As a result, those passengers rushed the cockpit to stop the hijackers. Sadly, the hijackers flew the jumbo jet straight down and it plowed into a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania at 10:02am. Its target was not certain, but it was most likely the White House or the US Capitol building.

After those first 76-minutes of September 11, 2001, 265 people were instantly killed (not including the 19 Jihadist hijackers) aboard those four planes, including eight small children younger than 12-years old. Approximately 125-130 people inside the Pentagon perished immediately when Flight 77 impacted the the outer three rings and a portion of the inner fourth ring. The exact number of people killed instantly by the jumbo jets crashing into the North and South Towers cannot be determined due to the eventual collapses of both towers. However, Wikipedia does offer a good idea of approximately how many were instantly killed by the plane crashes at the WTC.

The point of this blog-post is to remind all Americans that the horrifying attacks of September 11th could have and should have been stopped if it weren’t for too many personal sensitive government egos, arrogance, and them losing complete sight of who it is they really work for and serve: the safety and well-being of American citizens! The American people pay their salaries! Ultimately, the People of the United States are their financier, their payroll paychecks! Why was there so much internal power struggles inside our federal government? Why did those top government officials let their own hurt feelings and personal egos get in the way of saving American lives?

Yesterday I rewatched an excellent investigative PBS program by Frontline called The Man Who Knew. Here is a trailer of the documentary:

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Six of those “lost” hurt government officials inside the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), an ambassador in Yemen, East Africa, and the Office of the U.S. Attorney General during the time of at least 1992 to September 11, 2001, could have and should have protected and saved American lives, both domestically and abroad, instead of only concerning themselves with their hurt, damaged childish feelings and pride when told repeatedly about how highly organized globally and growing the terrorist group Al-Qaeda was becoming with Osama bin-Laden as the mastermind and money-funder. The first attack by Al-Qaeda at the Gold Mohur Hotel in Aden, Yemen, in December 1992, then the first attack on the WTC in February 1993, the attack in November 1995 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, followed by the attacks in August 1998 in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Finally, the attack on the USS Cole in January 2000 and once again in Yemen’s Aden harbor all should have been massive red flags to U.S. leading, top officials inside the FBI and the federal Attorney General’s office. But too much prideful lack of collaboration and open communication between federal departments failed miserably to protect and save American lives between 1992 and 2001. Period, no ifs ands or buts. Who are the five American officials that absolutely failed the American people and were appallingly derelict of their sworn duties as federal employees? They are…

  • James Woolsey – CIA Director 1993–1995. Though Woolsey was not a primary icon in the earliest Al-Qaeda attacks during his two years at the CIA, he could have amplified more persistently to his upper superiors what they were learning and had learned so far about Al-Qaeda’s plans. Sound the alarm bells louder and longer about the Bojinka Plot.
  • Robert “Bear” Bryant – FBI Deputy Director 1997–1999. Like Woolsey above Bryant could have done more, such as going to the news media to allow the alarm bells to be heard because Bryant believed in John O’Neill, the top go-to Guru of Al-Qaeda and Osama bin-Laden. Unfortunately, that would not have been FBI protocol and the repercussions from one’s FBI superiors and their superiors above them in the Department of Justice and the White House would or could ruin one’s entire career for going to the public behind their back. Ironically, it is in fact THE PUBLIC the federal government works for and serves and protects!
  • Louis J. Freeh – FBI Director 1993-2001. Freeh was good friends with Tom Pickard and both of them did not care for (hated?) John O’Neill’s personality, methods, or expertise on terrorism. After Ruby Ridge, Waco & the Branch Davidians, the Khobar Towers bombing Saudi Arabia, the TWA Flight 800 crash, and a long list of other American tragedies, by December 2001 Freeh was heavily criticized as one of the worst FBI Directors to hold the office, Freeh’s biggest criticism came from former Attorney General Janet Reno who also had unpleasant things to say about then acting Attorney General John Ashcroft.
  • Thomas J. Pickard – FBI Interim Assistant Director in 1996–1998, then Deputy Director in 1999, and FBI Director in June 2001–Sept 2001. Pickard was implicated as a direct opponent to John O’Neill and eventually had the top Guru of Osama bin-Laden/Al-Qaeda expended and terminated by a minor FBI offense. Pickard is most likely the leak to the New York Times about O’Neill’s insubstantial offense. Pickard never liked John O’Neill as a person or FBI agent/supervisor on Al-Qaeda and bin-Laden and his personal vendetta to O’Neill cost thousands and thousands of American lives.
  • John D. Ashcroft – U.S. Attorney General 2001–2005. Ashcroft was often criticized for doing far too little too late about terrorist threats on American soil and at foreign locations around the world, particularly in Africa and the Middle East. Perhaps his largest blunder was not having any clue about the sophisticated build-up of Al-Qaeda cells around the world and inside the United States due to internal strife and egos in the FBI and poor collaboration between his office and the FBI. Ashcroft is not exempt from his part of complacency and ignorance to and about 9/11. In fact, sworn testimony of two FBI agents later interviewed by the 9/11 Commission stated “he had ignored warnings of an imminent al-Qaida attack.”
  • Barbara K. Bodine – U.S. Ambassador to Yemen 1997–2001. There were many conflicts between Bodine and John O’Neill during the aftermath of the USS Cole bombing there. The most controversial and colossal blunder by Bodine to O’Neill was denying him visa re-entry into Yemen after a trip back to the New York for Thanksgiving. Because of her ego, pride, and lack of investigative protocol, she hindered further investigation into the Cole bombing which would have or could have led O’Neill and the FBI to bin-Laden and the already present Al-Qaeda cells in the United States and the 19 Jihadist terrorist-hijackers training to fly American jumbo jets. This could have likely foiled and stopped bin-Laden’s ultimate plan for September 11th.

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With the current horrid detrimental shape and direction of this United States of America are going through today under the President’s administration, co-led by his MAGA officials in Congress (Supreme Court included), and his public base, I really recommend (urge you?) watching the full hour and twenty-five minute PBS FRONTLINE® documentary, The Man Who Knew. Had so many FBI and Attorney General’s office personnel and deputy directors and directors under President George W. Bush’s watch not had their toes stepped on, feelings hurt, egos and pride dented, and minor protocol debates and rules of etiquette arguments—something that is happening here right now in Washington D.C. …this country would not have to suffer through and remember every year the terrible events of September 11, 2001, and perhaps again now until 2028. Think about it. This country badly needs, requires our federal and state government employees to serve and work for the American people, not for themselves or for more money and campaign donations. Elect those candidates who live that Constitutional principle (for us) this October and November.

The Professor’s Convatorium © 2025 by Professor Taboo is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 

21 thoughts on “A Day That Should’ve Been Stopped”

  1. History is supposed to teach but some people simply will not learn.
    I remember that terrible day.
    All of us around the world who are old enough to remember it know exactly where we were and what we were doing at that moment.
    It will go down as one of those defining moments in history.

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    • Quite true, Ark. That morning is permanently burned into my 9/11/2001 day and where I was and what I was doing with my 6-mon old son. A year later on the exact same day my ex-wife and my divorce by her was filed and official. I asked her in about October 2001 if she even knew that. She hadn’t; never crossed her mind—she was in her own world ready to break-up our family (two kids) and make me LESS THAN a part-time father. 😒

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    • Couldn’t agree more with you Lenny! I often tell the wife and close friends that are like-minded as me that ‘I can’t figure out WHY we still have Lady Liberty in New York Harbor standing with the plaque The New Colossus and its poem’s content. We are so far from what she and it symbolize it is now an ancient dead relic with the current directions we’ve been headed. 😔

      Thanks Lenny for your comment. ❤️

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    • I know exactly who and what documentary you are referring to Nan. Watched it 3-4 days ago as well. You are referencing the brothers Jules and Gédéon Naudet, French-American filmmakers. They were making a film about newbie-rookie, or probie Antonios “Tony” Benetatos, a NYC fireman at Engine 7, Ladder 1 on Sept. 11th. Their film documentary was simply entitled 9/11 and it essentially covered those first-responders to both attacks on both towers, the FDNY fire-fighters who were there first, setting up command centers in the tower lobbies to organize all the Ladders and their firemen before going up the many, many, many flight of stairs to try and help evacuate.

      That film is also very well done. And all firemen of Engine 7, Ladder 1 returned safely, unharmed, before the towers collapsed. But as history shows, so many firefighters did not. They were caught in the collapsing towers.

      I remember one interview with a FDNY fireman that was part of the first “rescue” at Ground Zero which quickly turned into “recovery of bodies.” He said the biggest gut-punch, gut-wrenching part of going back to Ground Zero after the collapses was listening to all the fireman body alarms going off everywhere. Apparently all FDNY firemen wear them if they become stationary for too long, perhaps 2-3 minutes. 😭 The next day those fireman alarms were gradually going dead because of dead batteries and their bodies couldn’t yet be retrieved.

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      • Not that it’s all that important, but I wasn’t referring to a documentary. If you noticed, the info came from Wikipedia. ☺️In any event, I had never heard/read about the person who actually filmed the plane heading for the tower. Most visuals I’ve seen are <u<after the event.

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        • Yes Nan, you are right. Jules and Gédéon Naudet just by chance were standing about 4-5 blocks away from the North Tower filming the Engine 7, Ladder 1 firefighters checking an apparent gas leak coming up from the street corner grates. That was seconds before American Flight 11 hit the North Tower, which Jules happen to catch.

          That was undoubtedly a historic, random video capture for the start of 9/11. It might be the only video capture of Flight 11 hitting the tower or milli-seconds after. 😟

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            • Oh wow, I didn’t know that. Then again, who stands around videoing where they are and everything around them(?), well other than beeny-bopper young teens. 😄

              Horrible indeed. I really hope America and Americans learn thoroughly from history all the blunders made & bad, bad decisions so as not to repeat them so much in a few years, or decades. Because not all that much changes in that short period of time with human nature, the worst or the best sides of human nature, must be accepted, learned, and improved if we are to avoid making ourselves go extinct. 😒

              Think tRumper prez ever thinks about that or has the mental capacity to think ahead then behave in a way that stems from painful lessons learned? BWAAAA! 😄 That was a rhetorical question.

              Liked by 3 people

  4. I remember this awful day. I was sick and then got sent home. Later on my sister and mum returned home and told me about this “awful plane crash” and then we all switched to the news on tv. I was transfixed at the screen for a long time. This event was sad, not just because of the needless deaths and destruction that occurred, but because of everything else that happened afterward.

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    • Liberated, you as well as so many others in the U.S. and around the world were deeply hurt, deeply empathetic, and that day was burned into all our memories for the rest of our living days. The humanity we witnessed, the loss and the unbelievable human sacrifice to help was beyond comprehension for most all of us, me included. I cried so much that day, the next day, and the next, and the next, ad nauseum for the sheer brutality and painful realization of just how fragile life is and can be and that we have very little control over forces outside of us… that can just extinguish or life in a snap.

      Then watching the fireman documentaries down in the lobbies of the towers organize while massive BANGS hit the ceiling above them—jumpers—and those men were about to go UP those stairwells to try and help. SLAM! BANG! SLAM! Jebus, that noise every 2-4 minutes. Goosh, I lost it bad looking at those firemen’s faces. 😭 Most of them never made it back out before the collapses.

      And yes, the long aftermath of 9/11 was almost as torturous for us because of the ego George W. Bush had, Dick Chaney, and so many others in the Administration when they shifted focus off of Afghanistan-Pakistan and Osama bin-Laden and instead onto Iraq and Saddam Hussein simply to detract, distract from the ORIGINAL M.O. on bin-Laden! Not to mention W. Bush’s obsession with getting Hussein for his dad. What a colossal fuck-up invading Iraq and a war crime! 🤬

      Thanks for your somber comment Liberated. It is appreciated. 🙂

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  5. 10 Aussies, a couple of Kiwis, 67 Brits, 24 Canucks along with many others from around the planet also died on that day, truly making it an international terrorist attack.

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    • Sklyjd, you are so right. Thank you for mentioning that. The one and only time the NATO Response agreement was invoked and enacted—when the U.S. was actually attacked on its own soil, not in attacking Iran!—to come to the aid of a NATO member. What an EFFIN day and months and years after, huh?

      And yet what is so freakin’ scary today is that we are in similar times, with very identical leadership at the federal level, where this could soon happen again before 2028 and the exit of our current fake prez in the White House! I am constantly astonished how very little average Americans know and realize just how much we are AGAIN at high risk of another massive attack. Perhaps in retribution by Iran and their backing of many terrorist groups, or China in the Pacific, or Russia helping terrorist groups with what they have learned in their drone war upon Ukraine, or the Middle Eastern countries we have alienated with our SHITTY foreign policies by this Administration in the White House! 🤬

      I am normally not a vocal pessimist, but at the same time I do NOT ignore or sugar-coat reality, especially if it is highly dangerous to human lives. I refuse to pretend, to lie, and be a hypocrite. Problems have to be address promptly and with considered care, otherwise they will fester and either cause terminal cancer or immediate death. I mean… DUH! 🤷‍♂️

      9/11 should have been stopped. We had more than enough warning and evidence.

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      • Agree Prof, if one or more of these countries you mentioned did launch a massive attack on the American landmass as you say now being a higher possibility than ever, what would those unhinged imbeciles in the White House do? That is the most scary part.

        Maybe 9/11 was ignored on purpose who knows? I do only know that as you observe retaliation is far more dangerous to the US and the the threat of world than ever before.

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  6. An important post PT. Marking the most relevant fact ‘This should not have happened’. You are quite right to expose the silly little games which go on matched by the apathy regarding the true issues. In a gallows humour interlude it could be argued that the original Conspiracy Theory was actually started by the NSA to cover their backsides over the monumental screw-up.

    I have on audio book “The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks” which was purchased as a response to ‘Conspiracy Junkies’ and the not even half-baked industry that followed 9/11.

    Although heavy going to listen to, one fact that registered in my UK civil servant brain was the number of agencies who had a measure of responsibility. Alarms started ringing ‘Turf War’ ‘Snobbery’ ‘We Know Best’ ‘I don’t trust them- they’re not professional’ and so on; something which is endemic in any governmental set up. Screw-up written all over the place, along with the ‘Arrogance’ factor when faced with the true threat possibility ‘Uh? Like that would ever happen,’.

    I was once on one of those endless social media debates about ‘Conspiracy’ and chanced to exchange views with another long term public servant. We agreed that with the level of incompetence and lack of imagination at the higher levels any sophisticated conspiracy and efficient cover-up was simply laughable.

    The most toxic repercussion was that so much junk flooded the social media, Conspiracy became respectable and thus opened the door to snake-oil merchants such as Trump to slither into the White House.

    Roger

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    • Oh my Roger, your third paragraph is spot-on correct. And it was precisely that immature behavior from Louis J. Freeh, Thomas J. Pickard, and John D. Ashcroft that signed the death sentences of those 2,977 innocent humans here and from around the world, excluding the 19 Jihadist hijackers. And then months and years later another 1,400+ first responder rescuers and workers dead from related health issues from Ground Zero. What an unforgiveable tragedy that was caused not just from religious-political hatred by Al-Qaeda, but just as equally from childish, foolish government officials’ behavior! The latter is seemingly much worse than the other misguided mantras or lack of intelligence and communication up and down the FBI, CIA, and DOJ chain of command… or rather the chain of bureaucracy, selfish attitudes, and self-preservation! 😡

      Then in regard to your last paragraph about social-media, Roger, Roger, Roger, I can’t express enough how much I have grown to loathe and despise social-media, electronic technology, the internet or world-wide-web, and the mega-wealthy tech giant corporations that flood and bombard our personal space any way they can imagine—and then become unbearably persistent to get in our face and take over our attention multiple times over just one day! Rinse. Repeat. JEBUS H. CHRISTMAS it pisses me off to no end. 🤬

      Ugh, and I have to weekly clean-up and clean out the wife’s Android cell phone because she browses so many superficial sites, questionnaires, surveys, funny videos such as The Carol Burnett Show or SNL, Facebook, Instagram, etc., ad nauseum, and inevitably scams, tricks, fraudsters, computer AI programs designed to fish and infect your phone files get on her phone and takeover completely! And that nasty nuisance just NEVER stops! And our tellies are just as bad with the constant bombardment of ads, many that are not fact-based or just meant to be loud and in your face! It’s enough to make you go postal with a Browning .30 or .50 caliber machine gun on everything electronic! 😄

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      • I hear you talking Brother PT, I hear you talking.

        The tragedy being that readiness not to take responsibility and shift the blame is prevalent in all areas of politics, social actions, religions, commerce, etc, etc ,etc; along with the tendency to distort and down right lie. Whereas in gentler times it can be bemusing to find them out, in these days not so much.

        In our youths and middle age we all I guess fell for or indulged in the diet of propaganda (I do dislike that weedy ‘fake news’ term – call it what it is dammit!). Now it’s my cranky years (or being dignified – these later years of accrued wisdom 😉) ‘reading the runes’ is my fall back. Look at the junk, sift out the verbiage, and seek out the agenda, and rely on a list of also accrued comments and sayings:
        Like
        ‘Yeah that and a (used to be dime) will get me a cup of coffee’
        ‘Don’t believe all you read in the papers,’
        One from British humourist late 19th century
        ‘It says in the Travel Guide? You’ll be believing a newspaper next,’
        ‘Yeah, yeah and the chocolate ration is going up again,’ -a idea stolen from Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty Four.
        ‘Like I cared’
        ‘Sure you are’
        and of course the universal always effective ‘HA!’

        My dear wife of 53 years Sheila and I frequently when on our laptops indulge in wordage that would make any barracks room proud (both as responses to public statements by some yo-yo, and the vagaries of computer programmes) I do sometimes wonder when viewing the general antics of Humanity in forgetting the lessons of WWII, voting in the least qualified persons to positions of authority, and worrying about what some person whose only talent is having a big mouth on social media, I do wonder whether AI taking over the whole show does have some appeal🤔

        Cranky as ever
        Roger

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