Friday September 11, 2009, 10:24 am
By Ross Colvin

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama sought to rally Americans behind the war in Afghanistan on the eighth anniversary of the September 11 attacks on the United States as opinion polls show faltering public support for the conflict.

"Let us renew our resolve against those who perpetrated this barbaric act and plot against us still," Obama said on Friday at a somber ceremony attended by about 500 people under rain-filled skies at the Pentagon.

"In pursuit of al Qaeda and its extremist allies we will never falter," he said, before laying a wreath at a memorial for those killed at the Pentagon on September 11, 2001.

On that day, American Airlines Flight 77 from Washington's Dulles International Airport smashed into the walls of the U.S. military headquarters, killing 125 people, along with the plane's 59 passengers and crew and the five hijackers.

Al Qaeda hijackers took control of four passenger planes on September 11, crashing two into the World Trade Center in New York and a third into the Pentagon. A fourth, United Airlines Flight 93, crashed into a field in Pennsylvania after the passengers and crew tried to retake control of the plane.

In all, about 3,000 people were killed.

In New York, relatives of those who died in the World Trade Center attack took turns reading the names of the victims, adding personal remarks of remembrance for their loved ones, while flutists and violinists played solemn music.

The reading of the names took place in a small park across the street from the World Trade Center site, which is now a huge construction area where four skyscrapers and a national museum and memorial plaza are planned.

GROWING DISQUIET

But as Americans mark this year's anniversary there is growing disquiet over the eight-year-old war in Afghanistan, which the United States invaded in response to the September 11 attacks to root out al Qaeda and topple their Taliban backers.

Opinion polls show waning public support for the war that George W. Bush launched as part of his global "war on terror" that came to define his presidency.

Obama, who has ordered the dispatch of 21,000 more U.S. troops as part of a new Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy targeting al Qaeda and its Taliban allies, has been trying to stiffen American support for a war that has been going badly for the United States and its NATO allies.

In a speech to military veterans last month, Obama called it a "war of necessity" and said those behind the September 11 attacks were plotting to kill more Americans.

The chief plotter of the September 11 attacks, al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, has never been found, and U.S. officials believe he is hiding in Pakistan's tribal areas bordering Afghanistan.

A record 44 U.S. soldiers died in Afghanistan in July and last month's Afghan presidential election was dogged by allegations of widespread fraud that analysts say could contribute to more violence.

The White House is in an internal debate over whether to further increase troop levels as the top U.S. military commander in Afghanistan is expected to ask for thousands more, a step that could face resistance from Obama's fellow Democrats in Congress.

The Democratic chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Carl Levin, said on Friday the United States should focus on boosting Afghan troop levels before considering sending more troops.

The speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, said on Thursday she did not think there was much support in Congress for increasing troop levels in Afghanistan.

Polls show Americans have become less concerned about terrorism, and in a Gallup Poll conducted in June, only 1 percent of respondents mentioned it as the most important problem facing the United States.

There is also soul-searching about the harsh interrogation techniques that the Bush administration sanctioned in the questioning of terrorism suspects after September 11.

A recent Gallup poll showed Americans evenly split on an inquiry ordered by Obama's attorney general, Eric Holder, into CIA interrogation abuses, including cases of waterboarding or simulated drowning and "walling," where a detainee's head was slammed against a wall.

Bush officials, including former Vice President Dick Cheney, a vocal critic of Obama's handling of terrorism, have denied that torture was used and have defended the interrogation practices as legal.

The edginess that remains after the September 11 attacks was shown on Friday when the U.S. Coast Guard set off a security scare with a training exercise in the heart of the U.S. capital. The exercise took place on the Potomac River near the Pentagon, close to the time Obama was there.

(Additional reporting by Edith Honan in New York and Jeff Mason in Washington, editing by Vicki Allen)

Friday September 11, 2009, 10:26 am
Do you really think "G-d damn America" and "for the first time in my life I am proud of my country" Obamas care????????

Or is it just part of the J-O-B

Friday September 11, 2009, 10:45 am
If they were really adamant about "renew(ing) our resolve against those who perpetrated this barbaric act and plot against us still," then they would consider a real investigation of 9/11...

Friday September 11, 2009, 2:43 pm
9/11 was an inside CIA job

Saturday September 12, 2009, 10:40 am
I agree with Jacob. 9/11 was an inside job. No one can explain why Tower 7 fell. It was not hit by a plant. I, like many, have many causes for concern about the news we have been fed. Even more so because the falling of the Towers was used as one of the lies told by our government to lead us into the war in Iraq.

Sunday September 13, 2009, 9:53 am
Loosen the tin foil

Sunday September 13, 2009, 11:49 am

The entire Al Quaeda nonsense was an excuse, manufactured by the Bush administration -- after the 9/11 inside job -- to scare Americans into supporting the war, to line the pockets of war profiteers.

The fact that Obama is perpetuating the myth just shows you that his loyalties are the same.

Sunday September 13, 2009, 12:24 pm
This was the original justification and then there were others and now we are back to the original just because of the anniversary of 9/11. Nothing justifies atrocities committed against an innocent people. Even if Bin Laden was in Afghanistan when it happened (this man who was funded when he was fighting against the Soviets by the US) it could not justify the bombing of that country and the continued bombing of that country. Its people had nothing to do with 9/11. And who talks of Al-Quaeda or Bin Laden being there now? The enemy now is the Taliban - who were also funded by the Americans to fight the Soviets. How many Afghanis wanted them built up? Certainly not the women and children of Afghanistan. America has always wanted control of Afghanistan as did the brits before them. So please let's not hear this guff. And if 9/11 were an inside job as it seems - the only word to describe that is unspeakable. I would wish there were a hell they could roast in.

Sunday September 13, 2009, 2:26 pm
 
McChrystal: No major al-Qaida signs in Afghanistan:

"I do not see indications of a large al-Qaida presence in Afghanistan now," McChrystal told reporters at the Dutch Defense Ministry, where he met military officials.

[McChrystal is the US commander of foreign troops in Afghanistan.]

Sunday September 13, 2009, 2:43 pm
 
More deception:
 
The Obama Administration is Actually Increasing the US Presence in Iraq By Michael Schwartz September 12, 2009 "Huffington Post" -- US presence in Iraq is actually growing.

 
Believe it or not, the U.S. presence in Iraq is growing under the leadership of antiwar president Barack Obama. A recent Washington Post by reporter Walter Pincus explains that when U.S. troops are "withdrawn," their jobs are taken over by......mercenaries -- the notorious "contractors," who are hired for fabulous sums of money to sustain the huge U.S. presence there.
 
And there are some really awful aspects of this process, including:
 
• The cost of the contractors is substantially higher than the cost of the soldiers they replace. (That is, the cost of the war is going up as the U.S. "scales down" its presence in Iraq)
 
• "Where private guards replaced soldiers, many more guards were needed to do the same job." So the numbers and cost of the U.S. presence is going upward, not downward.
 
• The new contractors are overwhelmingly "third-country nationals" employed by U.S. corporations under contract from the U.S. Defense and State departments. That is, with unemployment at 60% in many places around Iraq, the new jobs created by these contractors are not giving employment to unemployed Iraqis.
 
• And just to underscore that this is not a process of de-escalating a U.S. presence, the "third country nationals" brought in to replace U.S. soldiers are required to speak English, but they need not speak Arabic. So we learn that the process of cultural imperialism is continuing--there is no effort to have the U.S. presence become blended into Iraqi civil society. In fact, this and so many other actions work to coerce the Iraqis into integrating into the globalized U.S. political economy.
 
Just another glimpse of the long term effort of the U.S. government to colonize Iraq.
 
Michael Schwartz is an eminent sociologist specializing in the study of insurgency