Twelve years on - September 11, 2001 - in respectful remembrance and mourning

With time the pain becomes less raw, but it never goes away.



Terrorism cannot, and must not, ever be appeased.

(My permanent memorial to this and other terrorist outrages is in my personal website here - click on the arrow to see other pages from there.)

Note: comments are disabled for this blog entry.

Ten years on - 11th September 2001

It is hard to believe it is ten years already since the horrific events of 11th September 2001 (otherwise known as "9/11"), but it remains vividly etched in the memory.



There have many television programmes in recent days covering different aspects of this terrorist outrage and tragedy. However, I prefer simply to mark the tenth anniversary with this brief message and pictorial story-board.

This and other recent terrorist acts are commemorated permanently in my personal website here.

PS/ I wrote an article entitled "Terrorism and Civil Liberties" shortly after '9/11' in the comment area of my personal website (as I only began this blog 6 months later), as a reminder, still just as necessary today, that the fight against terrorism should not be used as a justification by governments in democratic countries to curtail civil liberties; fortunately we have now got rid of the Blair/Brown/Blunkett/Straw Labour Party 'cabal' of quasi-authoritarians who cynically used fear of terrorism to set about turning the UK into the most watched nation in the world, with the possible exception of North Korea, and whilst many of the worst aspects of their collective mania have since been rescinded (e.g. ID Cards) we are still living with many of their follies. A couple of wise sayings need to be borne in mind here:
"Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty." (Wendell Philipps);
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." (Benjamin Franklin).

Finally, they got their man! Osama Bin Laden is dead.

It has been announced earlier this morning (White House website) by US President Obama that an operation by US Special Forces had succeeded in killing the terrorist and al-qa'ida leader Osama Bin Laden at a location in Pakistan not very far from the capital Islamabad. (see also this BBC news report)



The mastermind behind the terrorist outrages in the US on 11th September 2001 has finally been taken out of action and his victims at least partially avenged. I write this not in a tome of triumphalism, as the death of any human being [even one so misguided and despicable as Osama bin Laden] is not an occasion for rejoicing, but I am certainly not sorry to hear of his death.

Unfortunately with his death it is highly unlikely that the threat of terrorism posed by al-qa'ida and its co-conspirator organisations is at and end. Indeed it is possible there may be retaliatory terrorist outrages in coming days or weeeks. Defending freedom against those who would seek to deprive us of it is never going to be easy - life, unfortunately, is not like that.

PS/ Although I watched most of the events 'live' on television from soon after the aircraft hi-jackings began I did not write about it immediately; this blog began only 6 months later. However in the comment area of my main website I did write an article on the general topic of Terrorism and Civil Liberties a couple of weeks later, once the impact of what had happened had begun to be absorbed. Like many others I sat open-mouthed in horror on that 11th September almost ten years ago, my only immediate analysis being that this was going to change the world in fundamental ways.

والحزن والشفقة

Eight years already



My personal memorial is here.
('wal-Hazin wal-shafaqah' - The Sorrow and the Pity - this is of course the translation of the title of a French film about World War II in France, but I think similar sentiments are evoked when we remember the events of eight years ago today in the US.)

Seven years on, we still remember ...

What I like about this video tribute is that there is no moralising or posturing; it tells the story of what happened seven years ago today clearly and simply by means of pictures and video-clips, with a lively tune to accompany it. Bittersweet is how I would describe it. I don't think any more needs to be said - it's a time for personal reflection.

My own small permanent tribute is here.