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February 26, 2008
I fear we have we have already forgotten
Today is the 15th anniversary of the bombing of the World Trade Center parking garage on February 26, 1993.
Seven Americans were murdered (including an unborn baby carried by one of the adult victims). Over 1,000 were injured.
The mastermind of the bombing, Ramzi Yousef, was convicted in 1998 and is presently rotting away in in prison. The spiritual leader of the terrorists who conducted the bombing, Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman, is also rotting away in prison and will hopefully croak soon. Their attorney, Lynne Stewart, was convicted of helping them plot and execute additional attacks on our country from their jail cell by carrying messages to their terrorist minions.
Only a few weeks before the bombing, the blind sheikh, who had been in constant communication with his co-conspirators, had attracted a crowd of followers at a Brooklyn rally. “God has obliged us to perform jihad,” he thundered. “The battalions of Islam and its divisions must be in a state of continuous readiness . . . to hit their enemies with strength and power.”The “enemies at the foremost of the work against Islam,” he declared, were “America and the allies.” For them, he had a warning:
If those who have the right [to have something] are terrorists then we are terrorists. And we welcome being terrorists. And we do not deny this charge to ourselves. And the Qur’an makes it among the means to perform jihad for the sake of Allah, which is to terrorize the enemies of God and our enemies too. . . . Then we must be terrorists and we must terrorize the enemies of Islam and frighten them and disturb them and shake the earth under their feet.
A small stone memorial in honor of the victims of the 1993 bombing was erected in the WTC. Of course, it's nothing but a memory now, it was destroyed in the 9/11/01 attacks along with 2,996 innocent people whose lives were taken by islamic terrorists.
We should never forget the 1993 WTC bombing and the victims:
* 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
A few months after September 11, 2001, I found myself in a coversation about it with an attorney, and he said the most amazing thing about September 11, 2001. He said to me, "well, it is the first act of terrorism on US soil." I had to remind of the events of February 26, 1993 because, well, as you can see, he had already forgotten.
The bomb in the garage was intended to cause one tower to fall into the other, and additional attacks were planned for the UN Building, the FBI Headquarters the Holland Tunnel, the Lincoln Tunnel, and the George Washington Bridge.
"My impression was that fighting terrorism, in general, and fighting al Qaeda, in particular, were an extraordinarily high priority in the Clinton administration -- certainly no higher priority. There were priorities probably of equal importance such as the Middle East peace process, but I certainly don't know of one that was any higher in the priority of that administration." Former Counter-Terrorism Official Richard Clark, during the 9/11 Commission Hearings
You have to wonder what alternate reality Mr. Clark was living in, as, rather than treat this attack as a declaration of war, the Clinton Administration chose to treat it as crime, using law enforcement agencies to investigate. And, two weeks after the 1993 WTC attack, President Clinton was at a defense plant talking about retoolling defense plants to peacetime production, at a cost of $1.5 billion dollars.
In all fairness, the FBI investigation did result in the arrest and conviction of the terrorists who carried out the attack, but still, the trial did not bring awareness of the extent of the threat to America, instead, it lulled us into a false sense of security, believing that the bad guys were caught, convicted and locked up.
Nothing could be farther from the truth:
The investigation following the explosions linked several distinct groups to the bombing and revealed a conspiracy to target other New York City landmarks such as the United Nations building. One of these groups included five defendants who were arrested during a raid at a New York City garage in which law enforcement officials found the five mixing chemicals that were to be used in bombs. The men were charged with conspiring to bomb a building in the United Nations headquarters, the federal office building housing the FBI, and two tunnels under the Hudson River linking New York and New Jersey.
From this group, members of Fuqra, the FBI found links to 10 additional suspects and a federal grand jury indicted all 15 on charges that they plotted to bomb the United Nations and other New York City landmarks, and plotted to assassinate Egyptian leaders. Across the board, bail was denied. Fuqra is a radical Islamic sect whose followers are believed to be responsible for a string of crimes in the United States.
These groups still operate in the United States of America, and they pose a real threat to our safety and well being.
The events on February 26, 1993 should have been a wake-up call for America, but we went right back to sleep. Islamic terrorism had arrived on our shores and we, as a nation, chose to ignore the threat. Today, the words of an eyewitness on February 26, 1993 are haunting:
Our enemies hated us then, as they hate us now. The only thing that changed was that on September 11, 2001 they succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. And, as the saying goes, nothing succeeds like success.
Posted by LindaSoG at February 26, 2008 12:05 AM
Comments
Why are these pigs still alive? What a sad comment on America.
Posted by: Mark at February 26, 2008 05:01 PM
We are suppose to forget, two reasons. We don't want to believe we have an enemy. It happened on Clinton's watch.
Posted by: DoubleU at February 26, 2008 06:15 PM
too many Americans have forgotten, if they ever knew in the first place.
Posted by: Grouchy Oscar at February 27, 2008 07:39 AM
Terrorism?
Clinton certainly wasn't going to use that word!
I recall being stunned when it happened.
I wan't as informed back in those days.
I learned quickly!
Posted by: Melissa In Texas at March 3, 2008 10:24 PM