Rtn Sandeepp Saxena #Growth #Impact

Happy to see my article on India-Indonesia ties with special links to Bengal published in today Kolkata Telegraph. My original title was: Three Bengalis in Indonesia.

9/11 did not begin on September 11. It began weeks earlier. With warnings. With names. And America Intelligence knew. July 2001. An FBI agent in Phoenix gets uneasy. He sees something strange. Flagged people entering flight schools. A memo is sent to HQ. But nothing happens. August 6. President Bush receives a briefing. Its title is chilling. “Bin Ladin Determined to Strike US.” Again. Nothing happens. August 15. A man named Zacarias Moussaoui raises suspicion. He wants Boeing 747 simulator training. Another red light. And again. Nothing happens. August 21. The CIA discovers something worse. Al-Qaeda operative Nawaf al-Hazmi had entered America. August 22. Another name surfaces. Khalid al-Mihdhar. He too is inside America. And again. Nothing happens. August 23. Then another warning arrives. This time from Israel. Mossad sends names to the CIA. 19 suspected terrorists. Four names later become chilling. Mohamed Atta. Marwan al-Shehhi. Khalid al-Mihdhar. Nawaf al-Hazmi. All 4 would become 9/11 hijackers. The CIA / FBI did not move. Meanwhile. Tickets are bought. Routes are finalized. Men are moving quietly. America is living normally. Months before the attack. July 2001. Larry Silverstein takes a 99-year lease of WTC. He purchases Insurance worth ~$3.55 billion. “Terrorism” included. Then comes the morning. September 11, 2001. 8:46 AM. Flight 11 hits the North Tower. 9:03 AM. Flight 175 hits the South Tower. Then the Pentagon. Then Pennsylvania. 3,000+ people die. America watches itself burn. Live. Meanwhile. Silverstein is not at the WTC that morning. Then the towers fall. A collapse some would later question. “Controlled demolition.” Or catastrophe unfolding exactly as planned. Then comes war. Then comes contracts. Weapons. Logistics. Reconstruction. Pentagon spending $14 trillion+. Lockheed. Boeing. Raytheon. Northrop. General Dynamics. War became a balance sheet. Afghanistan bled. Iraq burned. And Wall Street counted profits. Today the Taliban still rules Afghanistan. Pakistan is still an American partner. And everything feels reset. Almost as if history returned to its starting point. And Silverstein receives $4.09 billion. In insurance settlements. And suddenly the story feels darker. Because the question changes. Not who attacked America. Who knew what. And when. As if someone at the top knew exactly the answers. Because 9/11 did more than kill people. It weakened America. It created endless war. It changed the world. And perhaps that was the real victory. Not destroying two towers. But make America destroy itself piece by piece. And whoever planned that outcome. They succeeded. Perhaps more than anyone imagined.

Delighted to see you in Alpbach 🇦🇹 Shashi — “indolent,” though I suspect you’re the last person on earth that word truthfully describes! My Five to Thrive actually grew out of the opposite instinct: watching decades of relentless motion (yours included, across Parliament, the UN, and a shelf of books) and asking what keeps the engine running without burning it out. Grateful too for Jovanka Porsche’s vision in building @Global_Neighbrs as a real bridge between Europe and Asia — conversations like ours at Alpbach are exactly the kind of “neighbourliness” the moment demands. Onward!