Fourteen years ago today the World Trade Center was bombed leaving seven Americans dead and over 1,000 injured. The dead included the unborn baby of one of the adult victims.
The spiritual leader to the jihadists, Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman, 
and mastermind of the 1993 bombing, Ramzi Yousef, were pursued and prosecuted from a legal standpoint. Under the administration at the time it was not considered an act of war, but a criminal event.
I remember the attack well. I don’t remember much news coverage of it after the fact. I remember seeing something about a the one jihadist being captured. I couldn’t tell you anything about where or when he was arrested. I didn’t remember his name or anything about him until I started paying more attention to the news - after 9/11.
I remembered a little bit about the blind sheik, but I would have been hard pressed to tell you what he was connected with or who he was until I started paying more attention - after 9/11.
It’s enough to make me wonder why we didn’t take that attack so seriously. As I stated before, it was not considered an act of war and the Clinton administration continued to function as though we were living in a time of peace and prosperity. The fact we had an enemy determined to destroy us was completely ignored. I would venture to say that the great majority of Americans had no idea that enemy even existed. The downsizing of the military continued.
It is easy to forget those victims in the focus on the victims that came later, in the attacks of September 11, 2001. Lindasog points out that the memorial that was erected in their memory was destroyed in the 9/11 attacks.
The seven fatalities of the 1993 World Trade Center attack were:
- John DiGiovanni, Valley Stream, New York
- Robert Kirkpatrick, Suffern, New York
- Steve Knapp, Manhattan, New York City
- Monica Smith, Seaford, New York (and unborn baby)
- William Macko, Bayonne, New Jersey
- Wilfredo Mercado, Brooklyn, New York City
It would take nearly nine years for those buildings to come down at the hands of the same people before we would finally start linking together all the news events that shaped our lives for the previous twenty or thirty years. The bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. The murder of 14 girls at Montreal’s Ecole Polytechnique. The genocide in Rwanda. The genocide in Darfur.
All of these events may seem unconnected, but there is an underlying cause at the root of all of them: Islam. The ummah, or global Islamic village. Hatred of the west and what we stand for. A burning desire to bring us to heel; to make us submit.
Even now, our press is hesitant to call a spade a spade or a terrorist a terrorist. We have this bogeyman of Al Qaeda, and we blame them for everything. “…has links to Al Qaeda…” “…was associated with Al Qaeda….” They want us to believe that a half-dead desert zealot is responsible for all the evil in the world, without admitting that he’s telling us the truth. Islam preaches our murder. Islam will take over. Demands are made in the name if Islam. So much easier to blame one man - be it Bin Laden or Bush - than it is to face the real disease. Islam.
Lindasog has much more. Also at Yeah, Right Whatever.
Like 911 — How soon we forget.
Thanks for reminding us of this terrible day in our country’s history, Beth…
In memory of the ones who lost their lives that tragic day.
AubreyJ………
BSC: I had forgotten Aubrey - but Lindasog reminded us. We do forget about those first victims of the WTC.
But it’s the religion of peace. . .
BSC: I know, I know. I was wrong to imply otherwise. /sarcasm
Thanks for remembering Beth, how soon everyone forgets. The deception goes back a lot farther to the mid ’60’s when some of today’s leaders were part and parcel to anarchist movements, some of which have evolved and are now identified with Louis Farrakhan’s ideal of Moslem faith, one such group was the Black Panthers, then Marxists, who our very own sweet Hillary was heavily involved with as part of her Marxist indoctrination and as a law student defender of them. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/966232/posts
Many people do not understand that Islam has been teaching to destroy the Infidels for centuries. If anyone thinks they can change that with a few nice words they are really mistaken.
Thanks, Beth for your statements today.
Lots of disinformation there, and a disturbing conflation of those terrorists with the religion of Islam — those guys are no more representative of Muslims than Tim McVeigh is of Christianity.
Monica was my cousin and she will never be forgotten neither will her unborn child. thank you for remembering them.
Yes, heh, how soon we forget that George W. Bush say that Islam is not our enemy.
How very, very soon…