As I was rejoicing over the fact that 700 plus posts, written over the span of five years from September 2001 until December 2006, are now available to me again, I realized that I started this blog shortly before 9/11. Naturally, I took a look back at what I posted during that time period. The post I wrote that week wasn't my best writing but it was straight from the heart. So from the archives here are my thoughts just a few days after 9/11.
As This Week Draws To A Close
As this week draws to a close, it is often hard to think of this past week's events as real. Headlines that read like a Hollywood movie plot reflect a cold, grim reality for not just Americans but for people throughout the world.
For many Americans this has been a startling wake-up call clearly announcing that we are not immune to the horrors that so many other countries have already experienced. For people throughout the world these events sounded a loud warning that there is an enemy unlike any that most of us have ever faced or imagined. An enemy whose misguided zealousness devalues human life to the degree that it allows them to believe that an act of this kind is "God/Allah's will" .
This was not a crime against Americans only because many foreign nationals were employed and killed in the World Trade Towers. This was not a crime against Christians and Jews alone because I am certain that Muslims, Buddhists and atheists were also killed. This was not a Black on White, or White on Black crime that fits easily into many people's personal prejudices. This was not America's punishment for slavery or any other past sins. This was not an Arab attack against the United States because there are millions of Arab-Americans who love and appreciate this country and what it stands for. This was a crime against humanity. A crime orchestrated by a hate-filled religious zealot that believes that he is waging a holy war. I am a Christian but I know that the Koran does not condone such hatred anymore than the Christian Bible or Jewish Torah. History has proven that his combination of religious zeal and hate is indeed very, very dangerous. And men and women of good conscience can not sit idly by and (watch) it spread.
On the other hand, in the midst of this disaster, another message has resonated clearly throughout the world....the message that we are a global family and when you attack any one of us you attack us all. And because of this, Americans and all members of the world community that believe in peace and freedom from terrorism have banned together in a way that has probably never been matched in history.
Osama bin Laden, you have shaken us but you will never break us. Because the power of peace, love, freedom and democracy are so much greater than anything that you can throw at us. We were asleep but now we are awake
Seven years later, I wonder if the message that we are a global family has been completely forgotten.
I reflect back on:
- "Mission Accomplished";
- "Operation Iraqi Freedom";
- The Patriot Act;
- Alberto Gonzales' midnight hospital room visit to John Ashcroft;
- Guantanamo, torture and Abu Ghraib:
- wiretapping private citizens and telecom immunity;
- the 2004 Election, swift-boating and voter caging;
- extraordinary rendition;
- the conditions at Walter Reed Medical Center;
- Blackwater;
- Haliburton providing bad water to the troops;
- Osama bin Laden still has not been captured;
- and, now Pentagon officials are saying that we're running out of time in Afghanistan
and I wonder if we, as a nation, really did wake up or did we fall into a deeper sleep.
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