9/11/2001: A REMEMBRANCE
One of the few good things that came out of the 9/11 tragedy was a high-water mark for unity and religious tolerance in the United States. At gatherings small and large Christians, Jews, Muslims and others jointly offered prayers for the dead and for world peace. In many communities, people of all faiths stood vigil to protect mosques. This outpouring of ecumenical support far outweighed the few random attacks on Muslims. And Muslims worldwide condemned the attacks as a distortion of Islam. This is worth remembering in light of subsequent events.
This page archives some key documents of the 9/11 attack, including the list of casualties, and the report of the US government commission, which was completed in 2004.
THE NAMES
World Trade CenterPentagon
American Airlines Flight 11
American Airlines Flight 77
United Airlines 175
United Airlines 93
THE REPORT OF THE 9/11 COMMISSION
IndexContents, List of Illustrations and Tables, Members, and Staff
Preface
1. ''We Have Some Planes''
2. The Foundation of the New Terrorism
3. Counterterrorism Evolves
4. Responses to Al Qaeda's Initial Assaults
5. Al Qaeda Aims at the American Homeland
6. From Threat To Threat
7. The Attack Looms
8. ''The System Was Blinking Red''
9. Heroism and Horror
10. Wartime
11. Foresight--and Hindsight
12. What To Do? A Global Strategy
13. How To Do It? A Different Way of Organizing the Government
Appendices
Notes
TRANSCRIPTS OF THE 9/11 COMMISSION
Note: These are all fairly large files, so they may take some time to download on a slow connection
Index9/11 Commission Hearing 4/1/2003
9/11 Commission Hearing 5/23/2003
9/11 Commission Hearing 5/23/2003
9/11 Commission Hearing 7/9/2003
9/11 Commission Hearing 10/14/2003
9/11 Commission Hearing 11/19/2003
9/11 Commission Hearing 12/8/2003
9/11 Commission Hearing 1/26/2004
9/11 Commission Hearing 1/27/2004
9/11 Commission Hearing 3/23/2004
9/11 Commission Hearing 3/24/2004
9/11 Commission Hearing 4/8/2004
9/11 Commission Hearing 4/13/2004
9/11 Commission Hearing 4/14/2004
9/11 Commission Hearing 6/16/2004
9/11 Commission Hearing 6/17/2004
OTHER RESOURCES AT SACRED-TEXTS
Shortly after the disaster, Sacred-texts received nearly a million hits in one day, which was twenty times the normal traffic at that point. This was primarily because of wild (and incorrect) rumors circulating via email that Nostradamus had predicted 9/11. Fortunately, this site has a complete cache of Nostradamus in English and French so it was possible to refute the bogus quatrain that was being circulated. In the process, though, I found another obscure quatrain that had a certain resonance...
Another question which was being publicly debated was whether the attacks were sanctioned by Islam. As luck would have it, I was working on an etext of the Hadith, which has numerous passages which clarify this question, so I accelarated my work. I posted the etext of the Hadith on October 9th, 2001.
On Jihad and Terrorism by J.B. Hare
(Comment on A Manual of Hadith)
OTHER DOCUMENTS
Remarks of Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, 9/13/2004
These embarrassing remarks by two prominent Evangelical (conservative)
Christian clergy caused quite a bit of criticism, by blaming Muslims in general,
as well as the ACLU and other liberal groups,
Pagans, feminists, gays and lesbians,
and (strangest of all) abortionists for 9/11.
Unfortunately for them, their little cracker-barrel bull session
was being aired on national TV.
Of course, these views should not be taken to represent
the attitude of the majority
of US Christians, or of any particular religious group, or of this site.
Speech of President Bush to joint session of Congress, 9/21/2001
In counterpoint, President George W. Bush, an Evangelical Christian himself, to his credit, took care at the time to identify the real source of the attacks, the terrorist group Al-Qaeda. His remarks also stressed religious tolerance and outreach to mainstream Islam. This speech was only one of several he and other US political leaders made at the time which sounded this theme.
