(c) Flicker
My dad had lunch in the World Trade Center complex the day before it was attacked. Whenever he talks about it, I get chills all over. I was only ten at the time but I remember how the world stopped and watched the towers tumble to the ground, changing the history of the most powerful nation on earth.
He was in the USA on a business trip and he left New York on the 10th to attend some meetings in Chicago the next day. I was so young I didn’t even remember that at first, people thought the plane crashing into the first tower was an accident. My dad watched the second plane crash into the building with the broadcast journalist going “OH MY GOD, THERE’S A SECOND PLANE -”.
There were no meetings that day. There was a plane that was missing and the media were saying it was headed to the Sears Tower, located in Chicago, precisely two blocks away from where my dad was. Needless to say people ran for their lives, headed for Canada; it was a ghost town. My dad and the people who were with him did what they could; got away from the tower on foot as fast as they could.
It was a truly defining moment in history, and it’s been exactly ten years today. A defining moment that resulted in a stupid war and the ruin of the United States. It’s just so important to remember what caused all of this mess, not only because of the lives lost, but because of how deeply a whole population was wounded.
Great blog; though I disagree that the resulting war was stupid. Iraq under Saddam was hell. I don’t think any of us can understand what it feels like to walk down a street like Halabja after a chemical attack from their own leader, and watching the skin of children bubble and burst before they die. He was as evil as Milosovich and Hitler. Iraq in 2009 had an election that included Shia and Kurds for the first time, and women! It’s going the right way. I think i’m the only Left winger in the World, who fully supports the Iraq war.
You might be! But it’s definitely a complex issue. At the time, the reason to going to war weren’t completely wholesome, which was my problem with it and it did break the States. But yes, in a wholly human rights perspective, where other more powerful countries intervene to save oppressed populations, perhaps it was a justified move.