Daily Times

America marked the 20th anniversary of 9/11 Saturday with pleas for unity at solemn ceremonies given added resonance by the messy withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan and return to power of the Taliban.

At the 9/11 memorial in New York, relatives wiped away tears, their voices breaking as they read out the names of the almost 3,000 people killed in the Al-Qaeda attacks.

“We love you and we miss you,” many of them said as somber violin music played at the official ceremony, attended by dignitaries including President Joe Biden and former presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton. The service at the Ground Zero site where 2,753 people died – some of whom jumped to their deaths from the collapsing towers – started shortly after 1230 GMT under tight security, with Lower Manhattan effectively locked down.

Mourners clutched photos of their loved ones, their pain still raw despite a whole generation having grown up since the morning of September 11.

“It feels like it was yesterday. Every year (that) we get further away it becomes more important to remember” Joanne Pocher-Dzama, whose brother died at the World Trade Center, told AFP. Bruce Springsteen sang I’ll See You in My Dreams” and across New York smaller ceremonies took place at fire stations in remembrance of the 343 firefighters who lost their lives saving others. After nightfall, twin light beams were to projected into the sky. Heart-wrenching commemorations also took place at the Pentagon and Shanksville, where former president George W. Bush said the unity America showed following the attacks “seems distant” from today. “So much of our politics has become a naked appeal to anger, fear, and resentment. That leaves us worried about our nation and our future together,” he told mourners. In a video posted on the eve of the anniversary, Biden urged Americans to come together.

“To me, that’s the central lesson of September 11th. It’s that at our most vulnerable, in the push and pull of all that makes us human, in the battle for the soul of America, unity is our greatest strength,” Biden said in a six-minute message from the White House. The memorials come less than two weeks since the last soldiers left Kabul airport, ending the so-called “forever war.”