This final clip in the Remembering 9/11 series that has run here on the You Served Blog is from National Geographic TV. This is from the interview they aired recently of President Bush. This particular clip is of the former President talking about that morning and what he thought and felt as he was told about the first plane hitting the World Trade Center and then the second one.
This video clip is of Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld holding his first press briefing in the Pentagon on the day of the attacks. In fact this briefing happened just hours after the SecDef was outside helping evacuate wounded from the Pentagon.
As a reminder, we will have Mr. Rumsfeld on You Served Radio this week on Tuesday, 9/13 at 8PM EDT as our first guest of the evening. Be sure to tune and not to miss it.
Another honorable video put to the great voice of Leann Rimes singing Amazing Grace.
This news clip is from ABC on the morning of 9/11/01 as they started to collect up “on the street” footage of the towers falling and the people running from the towers. There is also candid footage of (then) Mayor Guliani trying to assess the footage and make his way to the World Trade Center.
No introduction really needed for this one. Just advice to maybe grab a tissue as I am sure the feelings of that morning, the sadness, the helplessness may come back to you as you watch this video.
This is another in the “Remembering 9/11″ series I am running. In this footage, CNN has several “on the street” interviews of people in NYC between when the towers were hit and when they fell. Also there is better footage and a clearer understanding of the attach on the Pentagon. Last but not least, while this footage is happening the first reports of Flight 93 crashing in Pennsylvania is learned.
In the ongoing series of “Remembering 9/11″ here footage from CNN’s broadcast the morning of 9/11/01 when the first tower collapsed”. I watch each one of these before I post them and let me tell you it gives me goosebumps and draws emotion to watch this all over again. I am posting these because I think America needs reminded of the feelings we all shared together that terrible morning.
In an interview with WTOP in Maryland, a Bin Laden associate admits that the terrorist had no idea the US would decimate his organization.
Osama bin Laden had no idea the U.S. would hit al-Qaeda as hard as it has since the September 11, 2001 attacks, a former bin Laden associate tells WTOP in an exclusive interview. “I’m 100 percent sure they had no clue about what was going to happen,” says Noman Benotman, who was head of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group in the summer of 2000.
“What happened after the 11th of September was beyond their imagination,” says Benotman, who adds that al-Qaeda thought the U.S. was a “paper tiger.” Sitting on the floor at bin Laden’s compound in Kandahar, Afghanistan during a meeting the summer before the attacks, Benotman shocked bin Laden and more than 200 other international jihadist leaders by telling the al-Qaeda leader his jihadi strategy was “a total failure.”
Benotman, a highly regarded associate of bin Laden’s at the time, says he surprised him again by rebuffing a plea for help. Bin Laden was stunned. Benotman says he spoke frankly because his reputation allowed him to. “I’ve spent time in the front line engaging with the enemy more than bin Laden and [Ayman Al-] Zawahiri and the entire group of al-Qaeda.” Zawahiri laughed when he warned those at the 2000 meeting that the U.S. response would be swift, hard and long, Benotman says. Benotman attributes al-Qaeda’s overconfident attitude to the United States’ response to al-Qaeda attacks on its in embassies in Nairobi, Kenya and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania in 1998. Zawahiri, according to Benotman, expected only a missile attack. Benotman’s assessment is backed up by a former Central Intelligence Agency officer, who was active in the fight against al-Qaeda.
The officer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, says “several captured terrorists have said publicly that al-Qaeda never expected the towers to fall. Their goal was to frighten people and impact the U.S. economy, so they really didn’t plan for the massive response the U.S. launched.” Bin Laden got more than one warning, says Benotman. “I told him several times before the September 11th attacks that if you do this, the U.S. is going to retaliate in a very harsh way.”
Now living in London and openly campaigning against organizations like al-Qaeda, Benotman – according to some – is simply trying to avoid going to jail in his native Libya.
Source: (Excerpted) WTOP.com, 27 April 2010
If you don’t want the horns, don’t tempt the bull. If you don’t want to get burned, stay out of the kitchen. If you don’t want an STD, stay out of Al Qaeda (Strategically Targetted Destruction)!!
Posted in Military History, Military News
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