USA commemorates the attacks of September 11: Victims in focus, politics in focus

NEW YORK (AP) — The United States is remembering the lives lost and changed by Sept. 11, marking an anniversary that this year is dominated by the politics of the presidential election campaign.

September 11 – the date on which nearly 3,000 people were killed in attacks on hijacked airliners in 2001 – falls in the middle of the presidential election season every four years, and this time it comes at a particularly important time.

Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump will hold their first-ever debate on Tuesday night and are expected to attend September 11 commemorations at the World Trade Center in New York and the Flight 93 National Memorial in Pennsylvania.

Then-Senators and presidential rivals John McCain and Barack Obama made a visible effort to put politics aside on the 2008 anniversary, visiting Ground Zero together to pay their respects and lay flowers in a reflecting pool that was then still a pit.

It is not yet clear whether Harris and Trump will meet at all. If they do, it would be an extraordinary encounter at a somber ceremony just hours after they face each other on the debate stage.

Regardless of the campaign calendar, memorial organizers have long sought to focus on the victims. For years, politicians have been mere observers at Ground Zero memorials, with the microphone instead taken over by relatives who read the victims' names aloud.

“You're surrounded by people who are grieving, proud, sad – who know what this day is about and what these loved ones meant to you. It's not political,” said Melissa Tarasiewicz, who lost her father, New York City firefighter Allan Tarasiewicz.

President Joe Biden is on his way to join Harris on the final 9/11 of his term and likely his 50-year political career for ceremonies in New York, Pennsylvania and the Pentagon, the three sites where commercial airliners crashed on Sept. 11, 2001, after being taken over by al-Qaeda members.

Officials later concluded that the plane, which crashed near rural Shanksville, Pennsylvania, was en route to Washington. It crashed after crew members and passengers attempted to wrest control from hijackers.

The attacks killed 2,977 people, left thousands of relatives dead, and injured many survivors. The planes left a scar on the Pentagon, the headquarters of the US military, and brought down the twin towers of the World Trade Center, which were among the tallest buildings in the world.

The disaster also changed U.S. foreign policy, domestic security practices, and the mindset of many Americans who had previously felt at risk from attacks by foreign extremists.

The consequences were felt around the world and for generations to come, as the United States responded with a “global war on terrorism,” which included invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. These operations killed hundreds of thousands of Afghans and Iraqis, as well as thousands of American soldiers, and Afghanistan became the site of the United States' longest war.

As the complex legacy of 9/11 continues to evolve, communities across the country have developed memorial traditions ranging from wreath-laying to flag-raising, from protest marches to police radio calls, and volunteer projects to mark the anniversary, which Congress has designated as both Patriot Day and a National Day of Service and Remembrance.

At Ground Zero, presidents and other officials read poems, portions of the Declaration of Independence, and other texts during the first anniversaries.

But that ended after the National Sept. 11 Memorial and Museum decided in 2012 to limit the ceremony to relatives reading the names of the victims. Then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg was the board chairman at the time and still is.

Politicians and candidates were still able to attend the event, and many did so, particularly New Yorkers who were in office during the attacks, such as former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who was then a U.S. senator.

She and Trump met at the 9/11 memorial service at Ground Zero in 2016, and this became a sensitive chapter in the presidential campaign at the time.

Clinton, then the Democratic nominee, abruptly left the ceremony, stumbling while waiting for her motorcade and later announcing that she had been diagnosed with pneumonia a few days earlier. The incident drew renewed attention to her health, which Trump had questioned for months.

Certainly, family members of victims occasionally send their own political messages at the ceremony, and readers generally make brief remarks after completing the names assigned to them.

Some of their relatives have used the forum to lament the divisions in American society, call on politicians to make national security a top priority, recognize the victims of the war on terror, complain that politicians are politicizing 9/11 and even criticize individual officials.

But most readers limit themselves to tributes and personal reflections, increasingly from children and young adults who were born after a parent, grandparent, aunt or uncle was killed in the attacks.

“Even though I never met you in person, it feels like I've known you forever,” Annabella Sanchez said last year of her grandfather, Edward Joseph Papa. “We will always remember you and honor you, every day.”

“We love you, Grandpa Eddie.”