Close X
Thursday, November 28, 2024
ADVT 
International

9/11 anniversary brings Biden, Harris and Trump together at ground zero

Darpan News Desk The Canadian Press, 11 Sep, 2024 12:19 PM
  • 9/11 anniversary brings Biden, Harris and Trump together at ground zero

NEW YORK (AP) — With presidential candidates looking on, some 9/11 victims’ relatives appealed to them Wednesday for accountability as the U.S. marked an anniversary laced with election-season politics.

In a remarkable tableau, President Joe Biden, former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris stood together at ground zero just hours after Trump and Harris faced off in their first-ever debate. Trump and Biden — the successor whose inauguration Trump skipped — shook hands, and former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg appeared to facilitate a handshake between Harris and Trump.

Then the presidential rivals stood only a few feet apart, Biden and Bloomberg between them, as the observance began with the tolling of a bell and a moment of silence. At Trump’s side was his running mate, Sen. JD Vance.

The image was one of putting politics aside at another solemn commemoration of the hijacked-plane attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people on Sept. 11, 2001. For years, politicians have been only observers at ground zero commemorations, the microphones going instead to relatives who read victims’ names aloud.

Some of those readers took the occasion Wednesday to deliver political messages of their own.

“We are pleading for your help, but you ignore us,” Allison Walsh-DiMarzio said, directly challenging Trump and Harris to press Saudi Arabia about any Saudi official involvement in the attacks. Most of the 19 hijackers were Saudi, but the kingdom denies involvement by senior Saudi officials.

“Which one of you will have the courage to be our hero? We deserve better,” Walsh-DiMarzio said. She’s a daughter of 9/11 victim Barbara P. Walsh, an administrative assistant.

Joanne Barbara was one of multiple readers who spoke out against a now-revoked plea deal that military prosecutors struckwith alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and two fellow defendants.

“It has been 23 years, and the families deserve justice and accountability,” said the widow of Assistant Fire Chief Gerard A. Barbara.

Biden, on his last Sept. 11 in office, and Harris were set to pay respects Wednesday at all three 9/11 attack sites: ground zero, the Pentagon and a rural part of Pennsylvania.

The president, vice president — and, separately, Trump — laid wreaths Wednesday afternoonat the Flight 93 National Memorial near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Biden and Harris spoke with victims’ relatives and visited the local fire department; Trump and Vance went to a New York City firehouse earlier in the day.

The Flight 93 memorial stands where one of the hijacked planes crashed after crew members and passengers tried to storm the cockpit. Trump described the site as an “incredible place” in brief remarks from afar to reporters.

The attacks killed 2,977 people and left thousands of bereaved relatives and scarred survivors. The planes took down the World Trade Center’s twin towers and carved a gash in the Pentagon, the U.S. military headquarters.

While it may seem that many Americans don’t observe 9/11 anniversaries anymore, “the men and women of the Department of Defense remember,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Wednesday.

The attacks altered U.S. foreign policy, domestic security practices and the mindset of many Americans who had not previously felt vulnerable to attacks by foreign extremists.

Effects rippled around the world and through generations as the U.S. responded by leading a “ Global War on Terrorism,” which included invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Those operations killed hundreds of thousands of Afghans and Iraqis and thousands of American troops.

Communities around the country hold their own 9/11 remembrances. Volunteer projects also mark the anniversary, which Congress has titled both Patriot Day and a National Day of Service and Remembrance.

During early anniversaries at ground zero, presidents and other officeholders read poems, parts of the Declaration of Independence and other texts.

But the National Sept. 11 Memorial and Museum decided in 2012 to limit the ceremony to relatives reading victims’ names.

If politicians “care about what’s actually going on, great. Be here,” Korryn Bishop said as she arrived to watch Wednesday’s ceremony.

“If they’re just here for political clout, that upsets me,” added Bishop. She lost her cousin John F. McDowell Jr., who worked in finance..

Brandon Jones was glad politicians weren’t on the podium.

“This should be a site for coming together to find feasible solutions and peace. This should not be a place to score political points to get brownie points to round up your base,” said Jones. He’s a cousin of victim Jon Richard Grabowski, an insurance firm technology executive.

In 2008, then-senators and presidential campaign rivals John McCain and Barack Obama paid their respects at ground zero, which was still an open pit.

The anniversary became a fraught part of the 2016 presidential campaign. The Democratic nominee, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, abruptly left the trade center ceremony, stumbled while awaiting her motorcade and later disclosed that she had been diagnosed with pneumonia. The episode stirred fresh attention to her health, which her Republican opponent — Trump, who was also at the observance — had been questioning for months.

Over the years, some of the relatives who read victims’ names have used the forum to bemoan Americans’ divisions, exhort leaders to prioritize national security, acknowledge the casualties of the war on terror, complain that officials are politicizing 9/11 and even criticize individual officeholders. Others appeal for peace.

“It’s my prayer that this wicked act called terrorism will never occur again,” Jacob Afuakwah said Wednesday. He lost his brother, Emmanuel Akwasi Afuakwah, a restaurant worker.

But most stick to tributes and personal reflections. Increasingly they come from children and young adults who were born after the attacks killed one of their relatives.

Thirteen-year-old twins Brady and Emily Henry never got to meet their uncle, firefighter Joseph Patrick Henry.

“We promise to continue telling your stories,” Emily said, “and we’ll never let anyone forget all those lost on Sept. 11.”

 

MORE International ARTICLES

Haley v Ramaswamy: For the first time, 2 Indian-Americans spar in GOP debate

Haley v Ramaswamy: For the first time, 2 Indian-Americans spar in GOP debate
For the first time in the history of the US, two Indian-American presidential candidates locked horns over the country's foreign policy in the Republican party's first presidential debate. On Wednesday, Nikki Haley, 51, accused Vivek Ramaswamy, 38, of supporting America's foreign adversaries and abandoning its friends, and said that her GOP rival lacked foreign policy experience.  

Haley v Ramaswamy: For the first time, 2 Indian-Americans spar in GOP debate

Trump mocks Indian-American VP Kamala Harris' accent

Trump mocks Indian-American VP Kamala Harris' accent
Taking a jab at Indian-American Vice President Kamala Harris's accent, saying she "speaks in rhyme", former US President Donald Trump said that he does not see her as a presdiential candidate for Democrats. 

Trump mocks Indian-American VP Kamala Harris' accent

Sikh man arrested, charged with murdering girlfriend in US

Sikh man arrested, charged with murdering girlfriend in US
A 29-year-old Sikh man has been arrested and charged with murder after he allegedly shot at and killed his girlfriend at a parking garage in California. Simranjit Singh was arrested last week after police suspected him of killing his 34-year-old girlfriend at Galleria mall's five-story parking garage in Roseville city.   

Sikh man arrested, charged with murdering girlfriend in US

UK police are investigating the deaths of 88 people linked to Canadian self-harm websites

UK police are investigating the deaths of 88 people linked to Canadian self-harm websites
The probe is part of international inquiries sparked by the arrest in Canada earlier this year of Kenneth Law, who has been charged with two counts of counseling and aiding suicide. Canadian police say Law, from the Toronto area, used a series of websites to market and sell sodium nitrite, a substance commonly used to cure meats that can be deadly if ingested.

UK police are investigating the deaths of 88 people linked to Canadian self-harm websites

One image, one face, one American moment: The Donald Trump mug shot

One image, one face, one American moment: The Donald Trump mug shot
A camera clicks. In a fraction of a second, the shutter opens and then closes, freezing forever the image in front of it. “It will be forever part of the iconography of being alive in this time,” said Marty Kaplan, a professor at the University of Southern California Annenberg School of Communications

One image, one face, one American moment: The Donald Trump mug shot

Officials say jet crash in Russia kills 10. Wagner chief was on passenger list

Officials say jet crash in Russia kills 10. Wagner chief was on passenger list
The plane was en route from Moscow to St. Petersburg and went down in the Tver region, more than 100 kilometers (60 miles) north of the capital. Authorities are investigating. The signal was lost in a rural region where there are no nearby airfields where the jet could have landed safely. 

Officials say jet crash in Russia kills 10. Wagner chief was on passenger list