Who were the murderers of 9/11? Good question. This article is certainly not going to be a tribute, and is probably going to be one of the toughest ones that I have, will have done. I have managed to not let hatred for them corrode my soul, as difficult as that has been. That is more for my benefit than for anything having to do with them. Having said that, I still firmly believe that the civilized world must rid the world of their ilk and inclination. Today, August 31, 2011, I will attempt to shine a light on darkness.

ABC News provides a lead up to September 11, 2001:

Ten years ago this month, America was more concerned about summer vacation than terror attacks. The big movie at the mall was "American Pie II," which had just taken over the box office lead from "Rush Hour II," and Beyonce was thinking about ditching her band for a solo career.

I am trying to remember what was on my mind, since I had not gone to see any of those movies named, or any movies for that matter. I was not listening to Beyonce, nothing against her. I was, and I still am, more into classical music and country music. I was probably listening to Brooks & Dunn and Il Divo. In any case, the point is that, we Americans were not thinking of, or plotting to blow up anyone or anything, for any reason. We were making welcome the terrorist aliens among us, even training them to fly planes, or more specifically, ram planes into buildings?

On the subject of terrorist aliens, FairUS.org states that the hijackers were foreigners, who entered the country legally on a temporary visa. Wait. There were three illegals among the bunch. Those three must have figured out that the US is not always too concerned about who enters the country. In August 2001, at least two had been on a terror watch list, and there they were “hiding in plain sight”?

Atta, the “head of operations” left all sorts of clues, including being arrested in Florida for driving without a license, yet he received a pilot’s certificate? I guess it is less dangerous to be flying an aircraft than driving a vehicle. They loved Florida, Virginia and San Diego. They must have wanted to get (more) tanned. In some instances, this was a family affair, involving brothers. Between them, they had dibs on 144 virgins in the same family, in the afterlife.

This is certainly interesting about the “coordinator”:

Khalid Sheikh Mohamed (Coordinator) – Indicted in 1996 in N.Y. for his role in an earlier terrorist plot. Had a Saudi Arabian passport (although not a Saudi national) – obtained a U.S. visa in July 2001.

Indicted in 1996 for involvement in a terror plot, yet a few years later, he gets a visa?

The Saudi connection to 9/11 is given in this USAtoday.com article. About three quarters of the perps were Saudi Arabian. At least Saudi Arabia had the good sense to strip Osama/Usama/Whatever bin Laden of his citizenship. We have the word of Mr. Nayef:

"I believe they were taken advantage of in the name of religion and regarding certain issues pertaining to the Arab nation, especially the issue of Palestine," said Nayef.

Nayef said Saudi Arabia is not responsible for the actions of the hijackers.

"This is the truth ... and I defy anyone to prove it," he added.

Mr. Nyef, you have my word that I will not be defying you in any manner. Whatever you say is the truth, is the truth!

History.com gives some good background on the story of United Flight 93, on which passengers and crew showed the wretches how real heroes behave:

Meanwhile, a fourth California-bound plane–United Flight 93–was hijacked about 40 minutes after leaving Newark International Airport in New Jersey. Because the plane had been delayed in taking off, passengers on board learned of events in New York and Washington via cell phone and Airfone calls to the ground. Knowing that the aircraft was not returning to an airport as the hijackers claimed, a group of passengers and flight attendants planned an insurrection. One of the passengers, Thomas Burnett Jr., told his wife over the phone that "I know we're all going to die. There's three of us who are going to do something about it. I love you, honey." Another passenger–Todd Beamer–was heard saying "Are you guys ready? Let's roll" over an open line. Sandy Bradshaw, a flight attendant, called her husband and explained that she had slipped into a galley and was filling pitchers with boiling water. Her last words to him were "Everyone's running to first class. I've got to go. Bye."

The passengers fought the four hijackers and are suspected to have attacked the cockpit with a fire extinguisher. The plane then flipped over and sped toward the ground at upwards of 500 miles per hour, crashing in a rural field in western Pennsylvania at 10:10 a.m. All 45 people aboard were killed. Its intended target is not known, but theories include the White House, the U.S. Capitol, the Camp David presidential retreat in Maryland or one of several nuclear power plants along the eastern seaboard.

Todd Beamer’s “let’s roll” will forever live on in our vocabulary!

I found this About.com article, written from the perspective of a Muslim writer/educator, with the following narrative:

Indeed, among the many victims of 9/11 were several dozen innocent Muslims, ranging in age from their late 60s to a couple’s unborn child. Six of these victims were Muslim women, including one who was 7 months pregnant. Many were stockbrokers or restaurant workers, earning a living to care for their families. There were converts and immigrants, hailing from over a dozen different countries and the U.S. There were heroes: a NYPD cadet and a Marriott hotel worker, who sacrificed their lives attempting to rescue others. The Muslim victims were parents to over 30 children, who were left orphaned without one or both of their parents.

I did not know at the time that the writer is Muslim. I began reading the article without checking the writer’s name.  I did not care who the writer was. It was good to see an account about how the terrorists also killed folks who shared their religion. Then I came to the following sentence:

In addition, among their fellow Americans they have faced ignorance, suspicion, and bias against the faith they hold dear.

Truthfully, I found it rather jarring, and question its veracity. “Ignorance, suspicion and bias” against their faith? Quite frankly, the almost three million Muslims currently living in the US have never had it so good. There have been accommodations that have been made, especially after 9/11, for Muslims. Non Muslims were not out there en masse attacking Muslims although 19 evil men, in the name of their religion, killed almost three thousand men, women and children, of 115 nations, including the Muslims listed in this article.

For almost a year, I have lived in a guesthouse rented from a Muslim family. I did not ask for a return of the first and last month’s rent, when I found out that the landlords are practicing Muslims.  I took this action post 9/11. I love the mother of the family and at the same time, I feel a certain empathy for her.

Germany has had enough with the Hamburg mosque , meeting place of quite a few radicals, including some from 9/11:

“We closed the Taiba mosque today because young men are being turned into religious fanatics there,” Christoph Althaus, the city-state’s top security official, said in a statement. The group running the mosque used it to “propagate ‘holy war.’”

“The various jihad travelers and the Sept. 11 attackers were revered as heroes in the scene surrounding the Taiba mosque,” the agency said.

No, really? Here I am berating “heroes,” through my ignorance of what constitutes heroism?

The official word came down from the 9-11 Commission:

We have come together with a unity of purpose because our nation demands it. September 11, 2001, was a day of unprecedented shock and suffering in the history of the United States. The nation was unprepared.

The nation was unprepared although many signs were there supposedly since the presidency of Bill Clinton. I cannot be too judgmental though. Even after the first attempt on the World Trade Center, I could not conceive of such evil in taking down both towers, the coordination, the destruction.

At 8:46 on the morning of September 11, 2001, the United States became a nation transformed.

Yes, the nation has been transformed, and not all of it for the better. The TSA’s notorious “enhanced pat down” has already been discussed. I like to have even a small bottle of water just in case I get thirsty, and purchase it at a regular market at a cheaper price than the prices at the concessions stands at airports. A mosque at Ground Zero/Hero, is being forced upon the families who lost family members. Attempts are being made to implement  Sharia Law. One judge supposedly even made a recent ruling based on that law, instead of the US Constitution. American citizens have become the new “terrorists,” based on the level of degradation and humiliation inflicted on them by memberS of their own government bureaucracy and leadership. The real winners are those who carry out acts of terror and their supporters.  That is “transformation” that I can live without.

Though four had training as pilots, most were not well-educated. Most spoke English poorly, some hardly at all. In groups of four or five, carrying with them only small knives, box cutters, and cans of Mace or pepper spray, they had hijacked the four planes and turned them into deadly guided missiles.

The first sentence above gives the breakdown between the “brain” and the “brawn/muscle.” From prior reports, the muscle had not been told that they were going to be committing suicide. I wonder if any had a change of heart. This sentence also shows how the US is in danger of becoming a “way station,” with its common language and culture, slowly or quickly being replaced with “diversity.” I am “diverse” as they come, but I did not come to the US to be drowned in “diversity.” I came to be an American, apple pie and all. In hindsight, it is difficult to believe that the weapons of the murderers were so small, almost insignificant, and yet, except for United Flight 93, they succeeded in their mission, unobstructed.

The 9/11 attacks were a shock, but they should not have come as a surprise. Islamist extremists had given plenty of warning that they meant to kill Americans indiscriminately and in large numbers.

Oh well….

Bin Ladin also stresses grievances against the United States widely shared in the Muslim world. He inveighed against the presence of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia, which is the home of Islam's holiest sites, and against other U.S. policies in the Middle East.

According to recent reports, the verb “stresses, “ should be changed to past tense, as in old bin “is been gone.” I wonder if he has found out already that those virgins are non-existent. His sense of grievance against the US is “widely shared in the Muslim world”? I have an idea for those in that state of grievance. Just say “no” – to the aid flowing from the US. Show those Americans that you are putting your grievances where their money used to be! That’ll work.  The rest of the report, which details the attacks, the incompetence in not following up on clues provided by the “planners,” the signs from all of the previous attacks, is also painful to read. This was truly a case of a sleeping giant, practically comatose.

But, now that the giant is awake, will that giant fall into another slumber, and allow the new form of “terrorism,” which is to infiltrate from the inside, and employ the following strategies? Get jobs within the structure that you are trying to bring down. Keep playing the victim card ( which part of “for your own safety” is difficult to understand?). Keep suing for imagined slights. Keep practicing the art of deceit. Only God knows and He is not talking. Maybe He is talking and we are just not listening.

After wading through the lives of waste of human clay, I need to cleanse my mind. The hymn For The Beauty Of The Earth is like a drink of water in an arid desert defiled by “men” who were already cadavers even as they took up space on this earth, sucking up precious oxygen. The solace that God created this earth and its beauty, is what keeps me functioning.

I pray to God that we never forget, although some of us appear to be suffering from both short term and long term memory loss, about the vipers we let into our bosoms, the vultures who fed on the live bodies of our fellow citizens.

God bless America.