Sixteen years ago today the world witnessed the most horrific terrorist attack in history, when two planes flew into the World Trade Center in New York City.
Most of us who are old enough to remember that chilling day in 2001 will most probably recall exactly where we were and what we were doing when the news broke. At first there was confusion after the first plane hit, but then it became clear what was happening as cameras captured the second crashing into the World Trade Center.
Advert
Credit: PA
Many became heroes that day, and in the weeks that followed, though there were many more fatalities. It was impossible to prepare for, and even harder to react to. It changed a lot of things.
People tried to predict what would happen from that day onwards, and writer Hunter S. Thompson came eerily close to getting it exactly right.
On 12 September 2001, a day after the attack, Thompson's ESPN column read: "The towers are gone now, reduced to bloody rubble, along with all hopes for Peace in Our Time, in the United States or any other country. Make no mistake about it: We are At War now - with somebody - and we will stay At War with that mysterious Enemy for the rest of our lives.
Advert
"It will be a Religious War, a sort of Christian Jihad, fueled by religious hatred and led by merciless fanatics on both sides. It will be guerilla warfare on a global scale, with no front lines and no identifiable enemy.
"We are going to punish somebody for this attack, but just who or what will be blown to smithereens for it is hard to say. Maybe Afghanistan, maybe Pakistan or Iraq, or possibly all three at once. Who knows? Not even the Generals in what remains of the Pentagon or the New York papers calling for WAR seem to know who did it or where to look for them.
Credit: PA
Advert
"This is going to be a very expensive war, and Victory is not guaranteed - for anyone, and certainly not for anyone as baffled as George W. Bush. All he knows is that his father started the war a long time ago, and that he, the goofy child-President, has been chosen by Fate and the global Oil industry to finish it Now.
"He will declare a National Security Emergency and clamp down Hard on Everybody, no matter where they live or why. If the guilty won't hold up their hands and confess, he and the Generals will ferret them out by force."
Accurate or merely speculative? People are certainly suggesting that Thompson, the founder of gonzo journalism and author of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, got closer than anyone else to foreseeing how things would go after this.
Advert
Topics: 9/11, terror, terror attack, Terrorist
