Threats to global freedom

by YankeeJim | September 11, 2011 at 10:55 am

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Ten years makes a difference

Before I was born, the world engaged in a war against tyrants from Germany and Japan. Germans were bent on global domination based on a notion of racial and national superiority. Japan was bent of control of its geographic region and access to resources to fuel their ambition.

As that situation got settled by the organization of free nations against a common set of enemies, new threats emerged from the Soviet Union and China with Korea and Vietnam being manifestations of conflict between vastly different approaches to government and economics.

A common thread emerged among all economies and that is dependence upon fossil fuels and scarce resources over which nations of all kinds would struggle and position for control.

Mixing it up are battles over different forms of government and economy complicated by diverse cultural anthropology.

Today, it is sunny and bright as it was ten years ago. Flags are waving in remembrance and defiance.

“America Marks 10th Anniversary of 9/11 Attacks

By COLLEEN CURRY and JESSICA HOPPER (@jesshop23)

Sept. 11, 2011

Families, rescue workers and politicians gathered today amid a mix of tears, applause and patriotic cheers of "U-S-A" at 9/11 memorials in New York, Pennsylvania and Virginia.

The 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks brought special ceremonies at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and the field in Shanksville where the planes crashed. After reading a Psalm at the morning ceremony at the World Trade Center, President Obama arrived to applause and chants of "U-S-A, U-S-A" at a wreath-laying ceremony in Shanksville at noon. There, he and first lady Michelle Obama shook hands and spoke with many members of the crowd gathered there.

In Virginia, family members and first responders held a moment of silence with Vice President Joe Biden to honor the time when American Airlines flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon.

Biden said that what took place after the plane struck the Pentagon "was far more remarkable than the damage inflicted in the building behind me" as Pentagon employees and first responders risked their lives to help those trapped by the plane's impact.

To applause, he declared, "I can say without fear of contradiction or being accused of exaggeration, the 9/11 generation ranks among the greatest our nation has ever produced. And it was born, it was born, it was born right here on 9/11."

In New York, the annual reading of the nearly 3,000 names was punctuated this year by family members' visits to the memorial fountains at the new 9/11 Memorial Plaza, in which the names of those killed are etched in bronze. Some placed a flag or flowers. One woman threw her arms on the name of her loved one, put her head down and sobbed. Many took paper and pencil and making an etching, as one might at a graveyard.”