Among the public, the vice president Kamala Harris listened to the long list of victims’ names. Biden participated in another ceremony, at the Pentagon.
“While the pain fades somewhat with time, my father’s permanent absence is as palpable as ever”Jon’s son Leslie Albert said after reading the names of several victims, including his father’s.
Another relative of a victim, calling on political figures present to heal America’s deep divisions, said “it shouldn’t take another tragedy to unite our nation.” On September 11, 2001, 2,977 people died in the deadliest attacks in history, committed by the jihadist organization Al Qaeda.
Two planes hit the two towers of the World Trade Center in New York, a third hit the Pentagon and a fourth, which appeared to be targeting the Capitol or the White House, crashed in a wooded area in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, after a passenger rebellion. No one aboard the four hijacked commercial airliners survived.
The memory of Joe Biden
Near the capital, in Washington, US President Joe Biden commemorated the anniversary at the Pentagon. The president led the ceremony for the delivery of the wreath in tribute to the victims, accompanied by the Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the Armed Forces, General Mark A. Milley, in Arlington, state of Virginia.
Looking solemn and with a hand on his heart, he participated in a flower-laying ceremony near the huge Defense Department headquarters building, where one of the hijacked planes crashed, killing 184 people.
“I know that for those who have lost someone, 21 years is both an eternity and a very short time”said the president, under a fine rain. Referring to the recent death, Biden shared a message sent on September 11, 2001 by Queen Elizabeth II. “Pain is the price to pay for love,” wrote the sovereign of the United Kingdom at the time.
“The course of American history changed that day,” the president continued in his speech, although he stressed that “what has not changed is the character of this nation,” along with “the sacrifices, the love, the generosity,” he stressed. Sunday.
“Today is not about the past, but about the future,” continued Joe Biden, calling on Americans to defend democracy, the guarantor of freedom that the terrorists wanted to “bury under fire, smoke and ashes.”
9/11, turning point for the United States against terrorism
In an earlier tweet, the president had promised to “continue to keep alive the memory of the precious lives that were stolen from us” during those attacks 21 years ago. For her part, Jill Biden, the first lady of the United States, participated in a morning ceremony in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
“Terrorism attacked us on that bright blue morning, the sky filled with smoke and then the sirens came, the history of the United States changed that day, what did not change, what we cannot change, what will never change is the character of this nation, the one that terrorists thought they could hurt,” Biden said.
He also recalled in particular the civilians who seized control of Flight 93 from the terrorists, the policemen and firefighters who worked at Ground Zero.
As for the civilians on Flight 93, Biden stressed that “they were living the first shot of a new war and they chose to fight back and sacrifice themselves to prevent their plane from being used as a weapon”. In this sense, he promised “never to forget” and insisted on the need to “do justice to those responsible for the attacks.”
“It took 10 years to hunt down Osama Bin Laden but we did and this summer I authorized an attack on (Ayman) Al Zawahiri, Bin Laden’s right hand man on 9/11 and current leader of Al Qaeda, we will never forget, we will never surrender and Al Zawahiri will never be able to threaten the American people again.”
Al Zawahiri was killed on July 31 in a US drone strike in Kabul., the capital of Afghanistan. So, Biden called this attack “an act of justice.”
Since last night the two powerful light cannons that recall the two Twin Towers destroyed in the Manhattan attacks were on.
Source: Ambito
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