Reflect on ruthless attack

On Sept. 11, 2001, the United States was the target of a vicious and ruthless attack on home soil by terrorists.
      Since then some of the responsible terrorists have been caught, some tried and convicted. However, it is probably safe to say Americans will never forget the day the World Trade Center in the middle of New York, the Big Apple, was felled by madmen.
      Saddam Hussein is dead and Osama bin Laden is presumed to be either dead or in hiding, but their legacy endures.

AP Photo/Daniel Hulshizer
Thick smoke billows into the sky from the area behind the Statue of Liberty (lower left) where the World Trade Center towers stood Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2001. The towers collapsed after terroists crashed two planes into them.

There are those who say the economic dive which has gripped the world in the last few years was a direct result of that infamous day of the wholesale murder of 2,751 innocents.
      According to reliable statistics, approximately 2,993 people total, including the victims at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon in Arlington, Va., passengers and flight personnel (as well as the hijackers) on the commercial jets liners died in the series of suicide attacks coordinated by Al-Qaeda in the morning hours of Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2001.
      Some even say it was bin Laden's goal to cripple the world's financial system and stir panic and fear in the U.S. and that he succeeded.
      Others say the current global economic turmoil and continued military conflict in various parts of the world (including U.S. troop deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan) is the result of factors unrelated to 9/11 and would have come to pass regardless of that day's horrific outcome because of the already existing unrest and armed conflicts in the Middle East.
      Some people say it is a consequence of unscrupulous leaders along with greedy and unwise national and international banking institution policies and practices, or otherwise poor policies and /or economic decisions on the part of government and corporate entities.
      Regardless of who or what is to blame for the economic situation the world now finds itself embroiled in, we are now coming up on the eighth anniversary of 9/11. The Independent asked community members how they remember that inglorious morning. All of those we spoke to said they remember it well, but as might be expected, each had a unique remembrance of that day.