Post 9/11: 13 years after.

[wayzim]

Shame on me, I was just living my life today when the news reminded me it was thirteen years ago in the USA that the towers fell, the pentagon got blown up, and passengers fought back on flt 93. As angry as I'd gotten, watching the TV in Horror that day, and for weeks after, maybe in 2014 some psychic numbing finally kicked in. Or I'm just waiting for a proper anniversary like yr 15 or 20 to revisit that old outrage. Can't do it today, I'm busy. My only small bit of amusement and superiority allowed for the day is seeing the kids, either in pampers or preschool back in 2001, now claiming those discarded cracked truther theories like geese gathering round stale bread. If anyone believes in a core curriculum for education, maybe critical thinking should make a comeback?

[Neil]

Time does dilute the pain, distress and anger. But you only need scratch the surface to find the wound isn't healed. For me, the following image is all it takes... One of many individuals who were faced by death by fire/smoke, but instead chose to grasp at an extra few seconds of existance by jumping out of a window. How precious life must have seemed to them to choose to do that to cling onto just a few seconds more of it! And did the people who perpetrated this have such a love of life? No, they were deluded, misguided and filled with needless hatred. And here we are 13yrs on and such people are still butchering and murdering their way needlessly through innocent people for some misguided purpose (eg: IS).

[wayzim]

Time does dilute the pain, distress and anger. But you only need scratch the surface to find the wound isn't healed. For me, the following image is all it takes... One of many individuals who were faced by death by fire/smoke, but instead chose to grasp at an extra few seconds of existance by jumping out of a window. How precious life must have seemed to them to choose to do that to cling onto just a few seconds more of it! And did the people who perpetrated this have such a love of life? No, they were deluded, misguided and filled with needless hatred. And here we are 13yrs on and such people are still butchering and murdering their way needlessly through innocent people for some misguided purpose (eg: IS). OK, Neil. Drag me kicking and screaming back into this will you? There'd been massive inefficencies( or is that deficency?) in both the Bush and Obama administrations; where in the former, aside from burning all our bridges with our global intelligence net, Dubba also failed to draw any credible line in the sand. If he had, we might never have gone to Iraq and focused all our attentions toward Afghanistan, Iran & Syria. I agree ahead of time that some of this speculation is hindsight, but much of it was advanced by reasonable experts as soon as the ghost of WMD reared its ugly head. No good evidence to support such claims. Also a misread of Iraq's internal politics, which would never have cut a deal with either the Taliban or Al Qaeda. And then Obama seemed to go the exact opposite direction, and not in a good way. The politics were wishy washy, the actions hinged too often on erratic events like Arab Spring, and rather than firmly stating that 'We're All In This Together.' (Like George Bush Sr did with Kuwait and Desert Storm. ) our current president fence sat while making ridiculous promises to the American people and the world. I sort of hoped he was just blowing smoke, before doing something amazing to cut the legs out from under the various terrorists groups. Maybe he will with Isis, but I've lost the faith, kids.

[Neil]

Oh we could talk all day about the politics around 9/11, and I'll agree much of it seemed knee-jerk and very questionable... But , let's not dilute 9/11. It demonstrates how a (religious) idiology is willing to go to any lengths, without a shred of humanity or consideration, to achieve goals at the expense of innocent people who couldn't care less about the matter, and shouldn't have to... I get so very angry at these sanctimonious religious nutters throwing lives away so casually as if they don't matter in comparison to their make believe God. They have not a shred of evidence their belief is correct, but are willing to impose their beliefs on others to the extent of even denying them their basic right to continue breathing! *rant over* But to touch on your political thoughts - And here we are 13yrs later now with IS doing much the same Al qaeda was then. We seemingly haven't progressed much.

[wayzim]

Oh we could talk all day about the politics around 9/11, and I'll agree much of it seemed knee-jerk and very questionable... But , let's not dilute 9/11. It demonstrates how a (religious) idiology is willing to go to any lengths, without a shred of humanity or consideration, to achieve goals at the expense of innocent people who couldn't care less about the matter, and shouldn't have to... I get so very angry at these sanctimonious religious nutters throwing lives away so casually as if they don't matter in comparison to their make believe God. They have not a shred of evidence their belief is correct, but are willing to impose their beliefs on others to the extent of even denying them their basic right to continue breathing! *rant over* But to touch on your political thoughts - And here we are 13yrs later now with IS doing much the same Al qaeda was then. We seemingly haven't progressed much. During the week that was 9/11, it was one of the few times that a dream was made manifest amidst the rubble of ground zero. That by and large, a country came together in agreement, with most of the world standing ready to help; unconditionally & on a level not seen for decades; if not longer. And I so hoped that Bush would run with it. This had the markings of another Good war, which our governments then screwed up royally. But the upside to this is that it shows such a state of global cooperation is possible, we just need the will to follow through.

[Neil]

During the week that was 9/11, it was one of the few times that a dream was made manifest amidst the rubble of ground zero. That by and large, a country came together in agreement, with most of the world standing ready to help; unconditionally & on a level not seen for decades; if not longer. And I so hoped that Bush would run with it. This has the markings of another Good war, which our governments then screwed up royally. But the upside to this is that it shows a such a state of global cooperation is possible, we just need the will to follow through. Oh utterly and absolutely! The global out pooring of good will and support for the US (ignoring afore mentioned sanctimonious religous animals) was wonderful. If Bush had taken the moral high ground, and not resorted to the cheap vengence approach, I think the US would have been more respected and think the world would have been a better place.

[Rottedfreak]

"This'll fill the news for a few weeks." they said at the office on 12th September 2001, the same day I got out that crap job. "The(football) team lost last night." dad said to mam in 2003 as he dropped 'The Journal' newspaper with a picture of a fighter jet and the headline 'It's war!'. One of my clear memories was getting Galaxy Convoy and Master Megatron figures early in the morning on July 7th 2005. That was my decade.

[Neil]

Buckingham Palace Sep 13th 2001

[Mike70]

Wayzim, it boils down to education. School age americans arent being taught anythin useful. My nephew is in the 4th grade and his idea of american history is tha martin luther king broght whites and blacks together. I dont know whether to laugh or cry over that. His math skills are appalling, he has no idea of the 13 colonies, the revolution, and his only knowledge of the.War Between the States is that Lincoln freed the slaves. His knowledge of WWII comes from the history channel. He has zero exposure to any great world literature and is basically being taught functional literacy. I jump for joy every single day that my son is a Canadian and is going to a private school whose only comcern is stuffimg kids heads with knowledge and getting them to critically analyze it. The canadian education system is light years ahead of the US and is still concerned with competition for grades- not how to sing kumbyah with your diverse neighbors. The US is screwed until educational standards are changed.

[Legion2213]

Time does dilute the pain, distress and anger. But you only need scratch the surface to find the wound isn't healed. For me, the following image is all it takes... One of many individuals who were faced by death by fire/smoke, but instead chose to grasp at an extra few seconds of existance by jumping out of a window. How precious life must have seemed to them to choose to do that to cling onto just a few seconds more of it! And did the people who perpetrated this have such a love of life? No, they were deluded, misguided and filled with needless hatred. And here we are 13yrs on and such people are still butchering and murdering their way needlessly through innocent people for some misguided purpose (eg: IS). Christ! I watched 9/11 unfolding at my mums house, she started crying when we spotted our first jumper. Fucking horrible, the stuff of nightmares.