This week in Haiti
Hijacked Plane Crashes Destroy
New York's World Trade Centers
PLANE HITS PENTAGON, MANY KILLED
Thousands Believed Dead
On Sept. 11, 2001, two hijacked airliners were flown into each of the 110-story World Trade Center (WTC) Towers which loomed above New York's lower Manhattan financial district.
At 8:45 a.m., an American Airlines Boeing 767, Flt. 11 from Boston to Los Angeles slammed into Tower 1, about a third of the way from the top. It had been hijacked shortly after take-off and had 92 people on board.
Eighteen minutes later, at 9:00 a.m., a United Airlines Flight 175, a Boeing 767 bound from Boston to Los Angeles with 65 people on board, crashed into Tower 2, as Tower 1 billowed black plumes like a giant smoke stack. Both planes sliced into the towers and exploded inside.
The crashes sent debris, people, and body parts raining down into the streets below. Police cars, fire engines, ambulances, news crews, and photographers raced to the smoking towers as thousands of people ran out of them and away up the chaotic city streets. Onlookers lost a sense of urgency and began gawking up at the giant towers, whose top twenty floors or so were now engulfed in fire. Crowds screamed and cried as they began to see people jumping and falling from the skyscrapers, apparently trying to escape the flames.
At 10:05 a.m., the south tower 2 collapsed, possibly from an explosion near the base. Witnesses say that both plane crashes were followed by secondary explosions in the buildings.
The building collapsed to the ground, sending up giant plumes of gray smoke and dust which blanketed downtown Manhattan. Broken glass, paper, and gray rubble covered the streets.
At 10:28 a.m., the north tower 1 also collapsed, enlarging the cloud of smoke and dust which now completely engulfed lower Manhattan. Thousands took refuge from the choking clouds of soot and smoke in doorways and under vehicles.
An estimated 50,000 people worked in the Trade Towers, which also received tens of thousands of visitors every day. Officials estimate about 10,000 were in each tower at the time of the explosions. Those killed are expected to soar into the thousands as bodies are dug out of the rubble. Streets near the former WTC were lined with hundreds of incinerated and exploded cars and buses. At about 5:30 p.m., the 47-story World Trade Building #7 collapsed and others, like WTC Building #5 were on the verge of collapse at press time.
The world watched the drama unfolding in New York via television cameras in helicopters hovering outside a five mile no fly-zone established around Manhattan shortly after the first crash.
Meanwhile in Washington, D.C., at 9:43 a.m. another hijacked airliner, American Airlines Boeing 757, Flt. 77 from Washington D.C./Dulles airport to Los Angeles, dove into the Pentagon, causing what CBS News reported to be "massive loss of life." The crash started a huge fire which consumed the West Wing of the vast building, collapsing it around 10:10 a.m. A second plane reportedly crashed near the Pentagon later in the day.
Early reports said that a total of eight airliners were hijacked and in the air as the crisis unfolded. One of them, United Airlines Flight 93, a Boeing 757 en route from Newark, N.J., to San Francisco, Calif. crashed in the Somerset, Pennsylvania about 80 miles southeast of Pittsburgh, near a strip mine, with 45 people aboard.
Meanwhile, there was pandemonium across the U.S.. For the first time in history, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) closed down all air traffic in the U.S.. Flights already in the air were forced to land at the nearest airport, sometimes by U.S. Airforce F-16 fighters. International flights were diverted to Canada, which also shut down air traffic. U.S. borders with Mexico and Canada were closed.
In New York, thousands of commuters were stranded at the peak of the morning rush hour. All bridges and tunnels were closed to incoming traffic. Subways and buses going into Manhattan were stopped, snarling mass transportation throughout the other boroughs. Thousands evacuated Manhattan by walking over bridges, making many of them look like the New York Marathon. Meanwhile more than 10,000 rescue workers were rushed to the scene.
Television transmissions for most networks was cut with the crash of the second jet into Tower 2, on top of which transmitters were stationed. In New York, only WCBS managed to provide broadcast coverage. Cable subscribers were not affected.
President Bush was in Sarasota, Florida when he was told about the crashes. He was flown at exceptionally high altitude in Air Force One shortly thereafter, escorted by F-16s, to Barksdale Air Force Base near Shrevesport, Louisiana for a brief stop where he declared: "The United States will hunt down and punish those responsible for these cowardly acts." He was then flown to the Strategic Air Command headquarters in Nebraska while CBS News reported that Vice-President Dick Cheney "is in charge of the government in Washington."
Federal buildings across the country, including the White House, museums, and monuments, were evacuated, closed, and surrounded by soldiers or policemen. There were also reports of a car bomb attack on the State Department's headquarters in the U.S. capital. Wall Street stock exchanges, based near the WTC, were closed or never opened.
New York hospitals were overwhelmed with the wounded. "Hundreds of people are burned from head to toe," Dr. Steven Stern of the St. Vincent's Hospital told Reuters. Other injuries were abrasions to the corneas from the dense dust and soot in the air, and many rescue workers had bloodied hands from digging through the rubble for survivors.
Who is responsible for the suicide jet attacks on the World Trade Center (WTC) and the Pentagon? Without even knowing, U.S. government officials at press time are pointing their finger and missiles at "Arab terrorists," promising retaliation, just as they did after the 1995 bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City. Of course, that 1995 terrorist attack turned out to be the work of U.S. citizens, far-right extremists Timothy McVeigh, a former U.S. Army soldier, and Terry Nicholls.
Early in the day, the media reported that the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine had claimed responsibility for the attacks, a report which was later denied by the group.
Most of the accusatory speculation centers on Osama bin Laden, the Saudi Arabian exiled businessman and Islamic militant, who reportedly is based in Afghanistan. Bin Laden was trained by the CIA to overthrow the Afghan government in the 1980s, but he later turned against the U.S..
However, Afghanistan's Taliban
government rejected charges that bin Laden was behind the attack. Mullah
Abdul Salam Zaeef, the Taliban ambassador to Pakistan, said "we want
to tell the American children that Afghanistan feels your pain and we hope
that the courts find justice."
Nonetheless, as we go to
press, CNN reports that there were many explosions in the Afghan capital
of Kabul on the night of Sept. 11. The U.S. denied responsibility for the
rocket attacks, saying they were likely actions launched by rebels based
in the north of the country.
Throughout the day, U.S.
officials and news anchors took on a menacing tone, referring to the "cowardly"
acts. Of course, destruction of cities carried out in many lands by high
altitude U.S. bombers has never been called "cowardly."
In fact, the pain and suffering caused by the suicide jet attacks in
New York and Washington, D.C. is just a tiny taste of that inflicted on
countless victims of terrorist U.S. bombings in mostly defenseless countries
over the past half century. From 1950 to 1953, U.S. troops and bombings
killed 5 million Koreans, 3.5 million of them civilians. Whole towns and
cities were leveled by bombs. A War Crimes Tribunal in New York found the
U.S. government and its soldiers guilty of biological warfare, massacres,
rape, dividing families, and fomenting war, among other crimes (see Haïti
Progrès, Vol. 19, Nos. 16 & 17, 7/4/01 & 7/11/01).
During the Vietnam War in the 1960s and early 1970s, U.S. B-52 bombers
carpet-bombed cities and countryside, killing hundreds of thousands of
Vietnamese and poisoning their land and water for generations. In Dec. 1989, over 2000 Panamanians were killed when invading U.S. troops
bombed Panama City's popular neighborhoods like El Chorillo, an independent
investigating committee found. In Jan. and Feb. 1991, the U.S. launched devastating raids against Iraq.
U.S. jets flew 110,000 aerial sorties against Iraq, averaging one every
30 seconds, dropping 88,500 tons of explosives, the equivalent of 7 l/2
Hiroshima bombs. As former U.S. Attorney General Ramsy Clark explained
in a Jan. 26, 2000 letter to the U.N. Security Council: "This was by
far the most intensive bombardment in history. It killed tens of thousands
of people, injuring many more. Medicines and medical supplies were exhausted.
It devastated water systems from reservoir, pumping station, pipeline,
filtration plant to kitchen faucet as well as urban sewage and sanitation
systems nationwide. Food production, processing, storage, distribution,
and marketing facilities were widely destroyed. Poultry was nearly wiped
out by loss of electricity and lack of grain. Animal herds were decimated.
Fertilizer and insecticide plants and storage structures were destroyed.
Communications systems, telephone, radio, TV, were shattered. Transportation
was badly battered. Vital industries were attacked everywhere. Electric
power was knocked out across the nation in the first 24 hours of the assault.
Petroleum production, refining, storage and distribution from well to service
station were attacked across the nation." This savage bombardment has
been followed by a decade of merciless sanctions which have claimed the
lives of over 500,000 Iraqi children, according to U.N. estimates.
A similar aerial bombardment took place against Yugoslavia from March to June, 1999. Over 1200 North Atlantic Treaty Alliance (NATO) aircraft, led by the U.S., flew over 35,000 combat missions over Yugoslavia. More than 20,000 laser or satellite-guided weapons were launched and over 79,000 tons of explosives were dropped, including 152 containers with 35,450 cluster bombs, thermo-visual and graphite bombs, which are prohibited under international conventions. As a direct result of the bombings, thousands of civilians were killed and more than 6,000 sustained serious injuries. Children made up about 30% of all casualties as well as 40% of the total number injured.
In Aug. 1998, U.S. missiles destroyed the Al Shifa pharmaceutical factory in Khartoum, Sudan, supposedly in retaliation for terrorist bombing attacks against its embassies in Tanzania and Kenya. The U.S. tried to justify the strike, which killed several factory workers, on the grounds that the medicine factory was producing nerve gas elements. This charge has since been discredited by chemical experts.
Since George W. Bush came into office last January, U.S. warplanes have repeatedly bombed Iraq, killing and wounding hundreds of people. Just on Sept. 10, Iraq said that eight civilians were killed and three wounded when U.S. and British jets attacked farms 170 kilometers southeast of Baghdad on Sept. 9 with missiles and cluster bombs.
This brief and incomplete listing of U.S. bombings is not meant in any way to justify the terrible crashes which resulted in the death of thousands of innocent civilians on Sept. 11, 2001. The attack, whether carried out from abroad or by U.S. citizens, must be condemned.
Our review, however, should put this week's tragedy into historical perspective and make U.S. citizens more sensitive to the terrible pain, fear, and suffering caused when one bombs civilian targets, particularly buildings in the middle of cities.
As we go to press, President
Bush has just made a statement on Tuesday night saying that the U.S. "will
make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and
those who harbored them." This is apparently a reference to Afghanistan,
which has given bin Laden asylum. But what if it turns out that the U.S.
harbors the terrorists, as was discovered in Oklahoma City?
Meanwhile, governments around the world resoundingly condemned the attacks.
Russia's Vladimir Putin said that the "barbarous terrorist acts aimed
against wholly innocent people cause us anger and indignation." Palestine's
President Yasser Arafat called the attacks a "terrible act." Libyan
President Muammar Gaddafi condemned the "horrific attacks" while
Iranian President Mohammad Khatami also condemned them as "terrorist"
and offered "deep sympathy" to the U.S. people.
Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Pérez Roque offered his deepest
condolences to the victims of the attacks and said that his country has
always taken a position to "totally condemn and reject terrorism wherever
it comes from and against whoever it is perpetrated."
"Our people have had to suffer 40 years of acts of terrorism, so
we know the consequences of this type of action," Pérez Roque
said.
Finally, we close with a Sept. 11 statement from the International Action
Center (IAC), a coalition of progressive international activists based
in New York City. It elucidates many of the dangers of the coming days:
Everyone here has been deeply affected by today's events. The International
Action Center extends its most heartfelt sympathies and condolences to
all those who have lost loved ones today as well as the thousands of workers
who were in lower Manhattan today.
While, at this moment, thousands of families are in mourning for the
death and injuries of loved ones, the Bush administration is taking advantage
of the tragic human toll to strengthen the forces of repression while intensifying
the Pentagon's war drive, especially in the Middle East.
Arab and Muslim peoples in the United States are reporting that they
are facing racist harassment in their communities, on their jobs and at
mosques. Anti-Arab racism is a poison that should be repudiated. We call
on all people who oppose racism to stand shoulder to shoulder with the
Arab-American community in the face of this reactionary frenzy.
After the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995,
the U.S. government and media were quick to speculate that Arab and Islamic
organizations were responsible; but as everyone now knows, extreme right-wing
Army veteran Timothy McVeigh was to blame.
The International Action Center urges all anti-war activists and progressive
people to remain on the highest alert in opposing the Bush administration
and the Pentagon's plans to use this crisis as the springboard for a new
round of aggression in the Third World, especially against the people of
the Middle East.
In August 1998, the Pentagon delivered murderous cruise missile air
strikes against a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan without any evidence, supposedly
in retaliation for the bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Kenya. The cruise
missiles destroyed the Al Shifa Pharmaceutical factory that provided most
of Sudan's medicines. Thousands of African people perished as a direct
result of the Pentagon's bombing.
President Ronald Reagan ordered the invasion of Grenada in the Caribbean
shortly after a truck bomb exploded at a U.S. Marine Corps base in Lebanon
in 1983. Under Bush senior, over 2,000 Panamanians were killed in the middle
of the night on Christmas Eve in 1989 under the pretext of the war on drugs.
In 1986, after pointing a finger at Syria, Iran and several Palestinian
organizations for an explosion at a discothèque in Germany, U.S.
aircraft bombed Tripoli and Benzagi in Lybia. Hundreds of civilians, including
children, died in their sleep as the U.S. Air Force carried out this nighttime
sneak attack.
We ask activists and the people of this country to be ready to protest
new Pentagon aggression in the coming period.
The Bush administration will use this current crisis as a means to justify
a further expansion of the Pentagon's war budget at the expense of money
for housing, education, health care, jobs and other human needs.
Danger of More State Repression
Throughout the country, the military, FBI and local police authorities
are now sealing off large urban areas, blockading bridges, tunnels and
roads, and mobilizing a massive presence of police and the National Guard.
All this reveals an advanced stage of planning for domestic repression
that can be used against the progressive and labor movements, and the Black,
Latino, Asian, Arab and other oppressed communities.
All the more reason to resist the current efforts to strengthen police
measures under cover of the present crisis.
Build Solidarity
The people of New York City and the country cannot allow the Bush administration
and the Pentagon to play on their genuine feelings of shock and disbelief
to stir reaction and strengthen the forces of repression. This will not
help the working and oppressed people of this or any country.
The only way to respond to today's events is to extend solidarity to
the families and friends of those who perished or who were injured at the
World Trade Center and the Pentagon; build global solidarity with people
around the world struggling against war, poverty and exploitation; and
deepen the movement to protest new Pentagon aggression.
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