SEPTEMBER 11, ELEVEN YEARS AGO: I was in New York covering the news, trying to make sense of the thousands of dead people of all nationalities, the smell of concrete, metal and human remains that went about ten blocks away from Ground Zero.
I was the editor-in-chief for "Correo Canadiense" newspaper, as well as CNN in Spanish correspondent, and we were covering the attacks with international Argentinean photographer Nestor Ponce, right beside Ground Zero, where only the rescue crews can only go and stay. Also, Rodrigo Briones, our director of radio programming at Correo, and assistant Graciela Sanchez, were with us, witnessing the history's turning point.
Conspiration theories included, I rather focused in the human pain, shared by all the religions and beliefs, with people praying in their traditional attires or sacred books in hands at Washington Square. For us, getting close to Ground Zero, was not easy. A former United Press International special correspondent, I ordered our news team to get nearby and get the police menacing threats as they were: fear of new attacks. Nestor Ponce and Graciela Sanchez took many pictures right besides the Towers, where rescue people continued their efforts to see survivors and at the same times, they were dying a lot in that mission.
Stacked in black garbages bags, the human remains piled at Brooklyn Polytechnical, before sending away. We were ordered to go to NYPD (New York Police Department, where it was such chaos that we entered inside without anyone even noticing) and get new press credentials, to have access to Ground Zero and news conference, as an attempt to cover how many dead were really are. They said more than 3,000 people, but I think - for what I witness with my own eyes - that amount was not even a small part of how many lost their lives at the Twin Towers attack.
I heard the menacing voices over the radio, of talk show hosts exorting to get people of Arab origin and at the Empire Building State building, you can see how a couple of Muslim Americans where looked suspicious and not allowed to enter to a nearby restaurant. We were in New York that summer, doing a special supplement on travel and tourism about the city and its many rich cultural building, architecture, pop culture icons in Manhattan, Greenwich Village, Brox, Brooklyn, even Queens. Who could suspect what was going to happen?
No documentary has been able to assert the final truth. Inside job supported by the American's oil interests linked to Bush, Al-Qaeda plot, the Pentagon, CIA and FBI misreading of the intelligence information about the clandestine groups moving in the United States and worldwide. Would be even possible to know? With so much classified information and unable to recognize the errors, Americans prefered to attack Iraq, where people defended their country (not Saddan Hussein) with old rifles against the poweful military technology of United States. Until today, even after the retiring of the American troups, people continue dying there, in a conflict that won't solve its own causes. I was invited to write a book about the September 11 attack and go to Iraq to cover the war, I knew better that journalists will be a target (many of my colleagues died in Baghdad and other cities), that embedded journalism is not my kind (CNN coverage of the First War of the Gulf is a case study in desinformation, similar to the Cuban television in the Moscow coup during the perestroika and glasnot, silence or implied desinformation).
Back in Toronto, my objective coverage of what I sought and researched was not well-received by far wing groups and we received death threats, menacing calls, small packages at the office. We were reporting, remember? Nothing else that all the news than can fit. Dan Iannuzzi, our late publisher at Multimedia Nova, and Lori Abittan (the current CEO) allowed us to cover the breaking news in a way that was revolutionary for them, owner of 16 newspaper editions in many languages (Italian, English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, etc), because their news crews never went farther than Hamilton and the standard was, you can copy from the Internet. We, at Correo Canadiense, having covered current affairs and conflicts in more than 40 countries, believed that first-hand account of events bring news audience to our print media, radio and television cast, and online media. We still believe that more than ever in the age of Internet, mobile applications, and community and aficionado bloggers.
Later that year, we went to Washington DC for an annual SIP / IAPA meeting (Inter American Press Association) and hear guest speaking by Colling Powell and George Bush. It did not happen due to the anthrax scare in the American capital and we ended up talking right things and gossips with legends as Woodward, who believed that George Bush was "idiot", but later seemed to change his view in his book about the Bush's War.
We went to Arlington and also to the Pentagon to check those missile strikes there. We went to the White House and even we saw the incredible military protection of the building and presidency, with army snippers on top of the Oval House and ultra-modern survellaince technology all arround.
I will never forget these changing history's momentos. It was not like a travel souvenir or simply celebrity shining. It was real tragedy for all parts, for the world that not participate in political conspiracy and intrincasies. That is the reason that at 11 years of September 11, I feel worry for the new crisis to come: Iran and Syria. Even when Russia, United States and China are - supposedly - in a different world scene, still the fragment of Cold War and communism vs. capitalism is still there, waiting to make the globe a chaos in an eventual Third World War. We hope governments are responsible and can bring the nuclear threats of Iran under peaceful control as well as the genocide in Syria to stop. Everyone knows - including the Israeli miliraty top brass - that even one small nuclear missile, will cause a global damage to the planet.
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