Last night while waiting for the 11:30 trip to Manila (I was in Baguio), I watched a special ABS-CBN documentary entitled 9/11: The Philippine connection. I learned that the Philippines as a strategic setting for the plans to bomb the World Trade Center was deeper than I thought. And here's the clincher. After the ill-fated bombing, the terrorists were supposed to bomb select targets in the Philippines less than 2 weeks later! The targets: the US Embassy and the Embassy of Israel.
However, this did not materialize because the US Embassy was too far from the road; they would need an aerial assault to achieve their end. As for the Embassy of Israel, it's located in a building, making it a difficult precise target. They set their sights to other targets in other nations instead.
With their riches and determination, it would surely have been so easy for them to bomb their previous targets. Realization dawned. I work in the same building where the Israel Embassy is located...
I rode the bus to Manila with a feeling of dread. It's been five years since 9/11 but America still feels threatened. And what I have learned from the documentary did not make things easier. Suddenly the events that happened half a world away became even more personal.
A moment of silence to the innocent lives lost this day five years ago...
laki talaga ng impact ng 9/11. kahit 5 yrs na nakalipas ramdam pa rin ang alitan na naidulot ng gulo na yun...
ReplyDeleteMeowok, notice that I did not mention the word Muslim or jihad. Islam is a religion of peace not war. I do hope the viewer will not generalize the Muslim population. I have some Muslim friends too, and they do not want war as we do.
ReplyDeleteCruise, that's so true.
i havent watch that docu, but according to meowok that broadcaster might hit a muslim.
ReplyDeleteim working in a muslim country and i could tell that people here are not terrorist! in fact they respect us, christians. they allowed us to celebrate and practice our belief.
on the other hand, 9-11 tradegy had a great impact on everyones life.
We live in a dangerous world...
ReplyDeletebut I guess the danger of dying in a car accident, of a heart attack or cancer is much bigger than the unprobably event of being killed by a an attack from terrorists.
Those media people like to scare us.
Hello Mommy Lei. That tragedy has indeed affected people regardless of color and religion. And yes, I know that these terrorists are extremists. The general Muslim community embraces peace as well.
ReplyDeleteSidney, I became quite paranoid as I walked into our office and glance left and right when outside our building.
As they say, ignorance is bliss.
that's scary.should i be glad i wasn't able to watch it? but then now i know. anyways our office is located in the same bldg where the Pakistan Embassy is. of course nothing exciting happens there.the only thing we dread is being in the elevator the same time some of them are. not all of them, but some of them uh has this smell. and it can really stick in your clothes.
ReplyDeletesir nick! napanuod mo na ba yung documentary about sa 9/11 na pwedeng US government din ang nag-plan ng attacks tapos ituturo lang nila si Bin Laden as scapegoat?
ReplyDeleteyung isa kasing sinasabi nila, hindi naman plane ang bumagsak dun sa pentagon. hindi pwedeng plane ang nakawasak based sa destruction point na nangyari. isang theory nila is missile ang tumama sa pentagon. meron pang mga experts na nagsasabi na hindi commercial plane ang nag-hit sa WTC. parang government plane yung ginamit. chaka nagtataka sila kung bakit bumagsak yung WTC. crap daw yung explanation na nag-weaken na yung foundation kaya bumagsak. kasi bakit daw yung building 7 sa baba bigla nalang bumagsak eh hindi naman siya nasusunog. independentley siyang nagiba. may sinasabi pa silang \"bomb squints\" yata na makikita mo per floor bago bumagsak yung towers. parang may detonation daw na nangyari. parang demolition ng building.
another fact...wala pang gumuguhong building due to fire.
ewan ko lang ah. sabi lang sakin \'to nung lalakeng laseng na nakita ko sa disyerto.
ako yung nag comment ng anonymous kasi natatakot ako na baka malaman ng terrorist na may alam akong tungkol sa 9/11 eh.
ReplyDeleteMeowok, Al Qaeda is a Muslim-based organization and that cannot be avoided. They do what they do, they did what they did, all in the name of Allah. In fact, the last words most utter before killing innocent people is Allah Akhbar.
ReplyDeleteSome of our most loyal Americans are the thousands of Muslims that live in the Detroit area of my home state of Michigan. In fact, after speaking to a visiting Detroit cop the other day about this very subject, I'm convinced that one of the reasons we haven't been attacked again on American soil is because we have so many patriotic Muslim Americans. They do their work covertly for their own safety, but what they have done has been very effective. Most Americans, 99% of us, give EVERYONE the benefit of the doubt when it comes to this stuff.
Meowok, the people you have to worry about taking things wrong and being thin-skinned are Muslims, not non-Muslims. To highlight this...One of the most peace-loving men on the face of the Earth, the Pope, is being burned in efigy RIGHT NOW by hundreds of upset Muslims because of some academic remarks he made, all completely meant to be non-offensive.
Let me ask you this...how many Muslim nation embassies were attacked after 9/11 in the USA? How many embassies were attacked and burned and rioted against in the Muslim world when some trumped up cartoons depicting Mohammed were published in a Danish newspaper? Seems to me that Muslims do all the painting when it comes to the light in which they bathe.
MILF hits ABS-CBN for biased documentary
ReplyDeletePublished in www.luwaran.com-NewsOctober 1, 2006
Khaled Musa, deputy chairman of the MILF committee on information, denounced ABS-CBN for deliberately allowing itself as a tool of Demonic Hands to defile the good name and image of the MILF by repeatedly showing the documentary: “9/11: The Philippine Connections”. He said the MILF is a revolutionary movement with a clear political agenda, which is to restore to the Bangsamoro people their freedom and right to self-determination. The documentary film is being anchored by Maria Ressa, former chief of CNN Jakarta News Bureau, is now ABS-CBN vice president. The documentary was shown last year and twice or thrice starting last September 11, as part of the annual commemoration of the terrorist attacks of the Twin Towers in New York and Pentagon. It was reshown last night at 11:00 and it will be shown again today.
Ressa, acting like a mega-expert on global terrorism, linked the MILF to Al-Qaeda and Jemaah Islamiya as if she were personal witness to these alleged connections and plots to commit acts of terrorism.
One report said Ressa is working as a CIA agent, sent to infiltrate media in the Philippines for use in the global war on terrorism by the United States.
Musa stressed that nobody knew Al-Qaeda and Jemaah Islamiya before September 11, 2001 when the Twin Towers and Pentagon were attacked by “terrorists” using commercial jetliners. He said the MILF had already existed when Osama bin Laden was still a baby.
However, he said granting the MILF has contact with bin Laden in one way or the other; will this also make the MILF a terrorist organization?
“Sometimes, it is hard to choose whom to speak to when you are engaged in a hard struggle like the MILF,” he confessed.
He recalled during the Afghan War against the Soviets, Osama bin Laden and the United States were “allies” in supporting the Afghan resistance movement. A report in the respected British newspaper The Guardian states: “In 1986 the CIA even helped him (bin Laden) build an underground camp at Khost (Afghanistan) where he was to train recruits from across the Islamic world in the revolutionary art of jihad”. The US also provided the Afghans and Arabs sophisticated firearms including shouldered-fired stinger missiles.
Ressa pointed to Jamal Mohammad Khalifa, the brother-in-law of bin Laden, as the principal link between the MILF and bin Laden. But in 1994 Khalifa was arrested in Los Angeles, but he was released by the US and later on deported to Jordan, where a pending court decision on charges of terrorism was awaiting him. However, the charges or decision was reversed later for lack of merit and Khalifa was freed. He is now residing in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
Musa asked Ressa: “If Jamal Khalifa is so important to the Al-Qaeda hierarchy, why did the US release him?”
On the Jemaah Islamiya, Musa said they might have been in Mindanao for Indonesia is very close. But what is important is that the MILF has no official tie-up with this group, or if it had some contacts, the MILF does not know they are “JI terrorists”.
Musa also had this to say: “Why do the seven (7) million or so Moros suffer for 30 or even 300 Indonesians who are allegedly in their midst?” “Does not Ressa know that the Moros have been brutally subjected to all forms of injustices ever since?”
He asked Ressa that if she wants to pulverize the JI, she should confront Indonesia, because the JI are Indonesians.
He also appealed to the ABS_CBN to observe ethics of good journalism and to be fair to everybody and to the MILF by not subjecting it to trial by publicity.
He said ABS-CBN should also give the MILF the opportunity to speak of its side of the issue also.