Michelle Obama, Laura Bush to appear together at 9/11 memorial
First lady Michelle Obama and her predecessor, Laura Bush, will appear together next month in Pennsylvania at a ceremony marking the ninth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.
Obama and Bush will participate in ceremonies honoring the victims of the attacks, including the 40 passengers and crew killed in the crash of United Flight 93, the National Park Foundation said in a statement on Monday.
“Their show of support honors the lives and memories of these 40 heroes and everyone we lost on September 11th, and serves as a valuable reminder of how important this memorial is to preserve and share their story,” National Park Foundation President Neil Mulholland said.
United Flight 93, en route from Newark, New Jersey, to San Francisco, crashed into a field near Shanksville, in western Pennsylvania. The passengers and crew on the flight are believed to have struggled with the hijackers who had seized the plane.
Three other hijacked planes crashed into New York’s World Trade Center and the Pentagon outside Washington, killing nearly 3,000 people.
The anniversary ceremony will take place at a temporary memorial. A permanent Flight 93 national memorial is under construction and is expected to be dedicated on Sept. 11, 2011.
Photo Credits: REUTERS/Saul Loeb (Obama, Bush (R) at the U.S. Capitol, January 20, 2009); REUTERS/White House photo by Joyce N. Boghosian/Handout (Bush (L) hosts Obama at White House, Nov. 10, 2008)
US senator says no way to $200 million for 9/11 trial security
Maine Republican Senator Susan Collins rarely raises her voice to emphasize a point but on Wednesday she spoke forcefully against spending some $200 million on security for the trials of the five men accused of plotting the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, including the self-professed mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
“It’s the safe assumption that Congress is not going to appropriate $200 million for the trials of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in New York City,” Collins told Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano during a hearing on the department’s fiscal 2011 budget.
“It is not going to happen,” she said, adding that some of the money would be better spent on other things, such as resources for the U.S. Coast Guard.
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder had decided last November to hold the criminal trials of the five individuals in lower Manhattan but New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg reversed his support of doing so because he feared it would cause a virtual lockdown in that part of town, hurting business and possibly costing $200 million for security.
As a result, the Obama administration has been forced to reconsider where to hold the trials and even weigh whether it would be better to prosecute the five individuals in a special military commission trial rather than in a criminal court.
Napolitano said she had not been a part of those renewed discussions but said President Barack Obama expects trials of terrorism suspects in the United States. (Republicans have pressed to hold the trials at the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.)
“If the trials are moved from New York City, nonetheless there will be costs associated with those trials,” she said. Napolitano also said that no matter where the trials are held, a security assessment will be required which would dictate the costs.
Obama slams opposition to civilian trials for terrorism suspects
President Barack Obama didn’t mince words when he criticized Republican opposition to prosecuting foreign terrorism suspects in U.S. criminal courts rather than in military tribunals, calling it “rank politics.”
His administration was caught off guard last week when opposition mounted to trying the accused plotters of the Sept. 11 attacks in a lower Manhattan courthouse amid concerns about security and costs as well as potentially affording the suspects certain legal rights.
“One of the things that we’ve had to try to communicate to the country at large is that, historically, we’ve tried a lot of terrorists in our courts; we have them in our federal prisons; they’ve never escaped,” Obama said in an interview with YouTube.
“It’s been one of those things that’s been subject to a lot of, in some cases, pretty rank politics,” he said, referring to Republican opposition to the criminal trials. While much of the opposition has been by Republicans, a few Democrats have joined in the disapproval.
A group of senators, including Democratic Senator Blanche Lincoln, plan to offer legislation on Tuesday that would prevent any funding of the criminal trials, though it was not immediately clear whether there was sufficient support or how they would seek to pass the measure.
Obama’s budget for fiscal 2011, which starts Oct. 1, includes $73 million to transfer, incarcerate and prosecute the Sept. 11 suspects, including the self-professed mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. The proposed budget also included $237 million to buy, fortify and upgrade a state prison in Thomson, Illinois, to house foreign terrorism suspects now at the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Many Republicans have also opposed closing that facility, arguing it is the safest place to keep terrorism suspects.
Dash. You actually hit it right on the head.
No one wants the trials in their city. So, it makes the most sense to just try them in Guantanamo. It eliminates the problem of this taking place on our own soil.
Well, at least they are moving them out of NYC. What a slap in the face it was to try them there after over 3000 people lost their lives only to see the mastermind in court right down the street.
Why even waste money on a trial for someone who boasts of leading the plan to fly those planes into the WTC? Help him meet his 72 virgins sooner by saving money on a needless trial.
Holder huddles with New York team on 9/11 trials
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder on Wednesday flew to New York to huddle with his team that will be in charge of prosecuting and imprisoning the five men accused of plotting the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.
The closed-door meeting at the federal courthouse in downtown Manhattan included the prosecutors from the Southern District of New York and Eastern District of Virginia as well as representatives of the FBI, Bureau of Prisons, the Marshals Service, and the New York Police Department, according to an administration official.
A spokeswoman for Holder declined to provide details about the meeting. NBC News reported on Tuesday that a grand jury was hearing evidence against the self-professed mastermind of the attacks Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
The five men are not expected to arrive in New York until early next year at the earliest because first the Obama administration must give Congress 45 days advance notice about how they will secure the prisoners and address any security issues.
Holder has come under blistering criticism from Republicans for deciding to try the accused 9/11 conspirators in U.S. criminal court instead of a military court, arguing that they should not be brought to American soil from the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
One tangent concern has been whether the terrorism suspects from Guantanamo would be afforded any immigration status — and therefore some rights — when they are in the United States, an issue Republican Senator John Cornyn raised on Wednesday during an oversight hearing for the Department of Homeland Security.
“For a detainee who is brought here for purposes of prosecution, they are paroled — and that’s the technical term used — but they are paroled into the country only for purposes of prosecution,” DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano told the Senate Judiciary Committee. “There are no immigration benefits that accrue to that.”
“…a grand jury was hearing evidence against the self-professed mastermind of the attacks Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.”
If he has already confessed to this horrendous act, then why waste the taxpayers dollars on a trial? It doesn’t make any sense. He is guilty! What part of “self-professed” don’t they understand?
He is an enemy combatant who doesn’t have a right to a civil trial. To make matters worse it is taking place in, of all places, NYC.
This is a travesty.
What were they thinking? 9/11 scare on the Potomac
It boggles the mind.
Why would the Coast Guard decide to conduct a training exercise on the Potomac River, a stone’s throw away from the Pentagon, where the president of the United States and others attended a memorial event, on the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks???
The media, always on hyper-alert for anything terrorism related on the anniversary of Sept. 11, ran with reports of shots fired on the Potomac.
That unleashed never-far-from-the-surface fears of terrorism amid memories of that day 8 years ago when a hijacked plane crashed into the Pentagon, two planes crashed into the World Trade Center in New York and another into a field in Pennsylvania — shattering the country’s sense of security.
It turns out the Coast Guard was conducting a training exercise. “Somebody said ‘bang bang’ on the radio” and no shots were fired, Coast Guard Vice Admiral John Currier said, calling it a regular training exercise.
But still, what were they thinking?
The Coast Guard’s first line of defense over the incident was: “The best way that we in the Coast Guard can remember Sept. 11 and our security obligations to the nation is to be always ready and this requires constant training and exercise.”
Eventually after 8 yrs of 9/11 :
1)Where is US Troops ? Ans : Suffering/fighting in Afghanistan or Iraq, by staying away from their loved ones.
2)Where is George W. Bush ? Ans : Enjoying in Dallas,TX with their family members and loved ones, also enjoying texas ranger ownership with huge profit.
3)Where is Osama Bin Laden ? Ans : Enjoying in Pakistan (under the roof of top pakistani politicians, Real Truth)
with everyday Night party, Girls are Dancing and serving american Wine and Mexican Bear.
The First Draft: 9/11, eight years on
Washington awoke to a cool and rainy 9/11 today, so different from the brilliant sunshine that many recall from the day of the 2001 attacks at the Pentagon, the World Trade Center and in an open field in Pennsylvania.
To mark the anniversary, President Barack Obama, the first lady and White House staff observed a moment of silence on the South Lawn at 8:46 a.m., the time when the first hijacked plane hit the first tower in New York City. Next is a presidential wreath-laying and remarks at the Pentagon Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery.
The Obamas are slated to participate in a “service event” later in the day, part of a move to make the 9/11 anniversary a day of public service. Vice President Joe Biden speaks at a commemoration ceremony in lower Manhattan. Secretary of State speaks at the first Annual 9/11 National Day of Service and Remembrance in New York. The National Museum of the Marine Corps marks the anniversary with a new exhibit “dedicated to the historic day and the global war on terrorism.”
This year, 9/11 feels like an appropriate moment to pause, a break from the sturm and drang of politics and policy-making. Fights over healthcare reform, how to fix the economy and curb climate change can wait for at least a moment.
Somehow, it brings to mind the words of Carl Sandburg, writing about memory and healing in a poem about how battlefields recover. Sandburg wrote of the battles at Gettysburg and Waterloo, and how time and grass cover up the raw pain of these places. The sites of 9/11, grass-covered or not, could easily apply.
“Two years, ten years, and passengers ask the conductor: What place is this? Where are we now?
I am the grass. Let me work.”
after 8 yrs of 9/11.
Where is our Troops ? Ans : Suffering in Afghanistan or Iraq.
Where is George Bush ? Ans : Enjoying Dallas,TX
Where is Osama Bin Laden ? Ans : Enjoying in Pakistan.
