Twenty Years Ago Today

The Deadliest Attack by Foreign Terrorists, To Date, On North American Soil

A Brief Commentary by Doug Draper, Niagara At Large, on the 20^th Anniversary of the 9/11 Terrorist

Posted September 9^th, 2021 on Niagara At Large

Possibly no one now over the age of 30 or 40 will forget where they were when they first learned that commercial jets, hijacked by foreign terrorists (the majority of them Saudi nationals), slammed into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Centre in New York, the Pentagon outside of Washington, D.C, and into the verdant fields of rural Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

More balls of flames as a second jet slams into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Centre that, before the morning of September 11, 2001 was over, would come pancaking down, killing everyone still inside.

The jet that went down in Pennsylvania, we later learned, was reportedly heading for the U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C., where it would crash like a bomb there. It was brave passengers aboard that jet, who stormed the cockpit where terrorists were at the controls, who ultimately sacrificed their lives short-circuiting that deadly mission.

This front-page headline, on the front page of a September, 2001 edition of New York City’s Village Voice, seemed to say it all at the time.

In all, close to 3,000 people perished, and many thousands more were injured. Some are still suffering and dying to this day from inhaling the toxins unleashed from the smoldering remains of the Twin Towers.

In the wake of the attacks, citizens in Niagara, Ontario and across Canada rallied to help our neighbours in the United States.

In Niagara, some of our firefighters were sent, with the blessings of their municipalities, to help New York City firefighters search through the remains the rubble at the Twin Towers site for any possible survivors and for the remains of victims.

Where I live in the Niagara, Ontario municipality of Thorold, a wonderful woman rallied to community to donate boots and gloves for the first responders at that same site. I was there as a reporter, when numerous boxes of these donated items were placed on a transport truck that the driver offered to drive to New York City for free.

In the small town of Gander, Newfoundland, residents there took Americans into their homes when the commercial jets they were on hand to make forced landings in Canada in the homes following the 9/11 attacks. Canada allowed all those commercial jets in, never knowing for sure if some bad actors may have been aboard one or more of them.

These are the kind of friendly gestures from Canadians that the last U.S. President, Donald Trump, seemed to ignore when he proceeded to demonize Canada over trade issues and even placed our country on a security risk list.

Almost 20 years after the 9/11 attacks, on January 6^th, 2021, an angry mob of mostly Trump supporters, following his call to march to the U.S. Capital building, stormed and sacked the building, some with the apparent intention of killing elected representatives they might find inside.

How disturbing it is that 20 years after those brave passengers on that jet flying over Pennsylvania, managed to scuttle an attack by foreign terrorists on the Capital building, a mob of domestic terrorists, many of them wearing MAGA hats and holding up Trump flags,  managed to pull an attack off.

And on this 20^th anniversary of 9/11, while U.S. President Joe Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris, along with former presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama will be attending various ceremonies, Trump is billed to be in Hollywood, Florida with his insufferable son Donald Jr., hosting a pay-per-view boxing match.

There is no bottom to how low Donald Trump can get. Shame on the tens-of-millions of Americans who go on supporting him.

There is no bottom to Trump’s disgusting, disrespectful behavior, and yet tens-of-millions of Republicans continue to support him.

A much as 9/11 brought Americans and Canadians together, Trump and his willing enablers have done everything they can to stoke fear and rage, and tear us apart.

• Doug Draper, Niagara At Large

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