9 years after 9/11/2001

You know when was the last time I posted my thoughts on this?

I don't actually remember. A few years ago I wrote about what I was doing on that day when the planes hit the former World Trade Center (today's "ground zero"). If I never mentioned any feelings it would be that it felt like the time after a loved one passed away.

Anyway I have to be honest here. Yeah we lost a lot of people that day, sure. It was a very unfortunate tragedy where people who were just going to work or on vacation were incinerated to death. In fact it was messed up, that they were in office buildings trapped in the upper floors with no way down or indeed on hijacked planes that were in fact to be used as manually piloted guided missiles. It was a horrowing ordeal to be sure.

At that I truly believe those hijackers couldn't have had any sense of what they were doing. Only that religious ferver caused them to do this. As a matter of fact, I really can't believe thinking feeling people would allow themselves to do this. It is my belief however that these individuals were brainwashed and any doubt in their mind were wiped by whatever was ingrained in them before they did this horrible act.

All the same, I saw not long ago that History Channel was going to do a program which mish-mashes all the footage from people who were in NYC when the terrorist attack occured at the WTC. The idea was interesting and I almost think that they're merely re-airing something that was already shown on HBO years ago. My response to such programming is that I never want to relive it.

Somewhere at home I have a videotape of a FOX program that revisited that day and their coverage of the event as it had happened. I may have recorded it perhaps that same year or maybe a year afterwards. It's something I can show to my child one day although at this point I have no children. At this point my goal is to keep this horrific event at arms length.

I'm blessed that no one that I know of was harmed on that day. Of course I recognize that many people were affected by this event in some way especially that someone they know -especially a relative- died in the terrorist attack. Also there were some other consequences of this.

We're stilling fighting the Taliban and Al Qaida in Afghanistan. Less than a month after 9/11 President Bush engaged the ruling Taliban regime that controlled most of the territory of that nation and eventually the Taliban went from rulers to merely an insurgency. Then in 2003, President Bush engaged Saddam Hussein's Iraq and whether or not you agree with the how or why if there was no 9/11 as justification we wouldn't be talking about pulling out of Iraq after stationing troops there for at least seven years.

Next year it will be 10 years. A full decade and I surely viewed the world differently before 9/11/01 and Americans view Muslims differently.

Recently many Americans took a stance against a Muslim community center to be constructed near the site of the old World Trade Center towers "ground zero". A minority of Americans believe Obama is a Muslim and those who oppose him anyway use that as a basis. Nevermind that there are more important things to consider than the President's background or whether or not he's hiding his true faith.

Either way I plan to stay away from any coverage of any 9/11 ceremonies. I will do it when the 10th anniversary finally arrives. One thing I will do is observe this anniversary my own way and remember what makes American great. Also we should all know that while America will not be the same after that event, we WILL bounce back from that!