The time is 9:50 a.m., and my French class has been canceled.
My professor says there were too many people that had “family issues” to hold class. This is good for me because we were supposed to have a major test today that I did not study at all for.
This produces a sick feeling in my gut. I am benefitting from the pain and torment of thousands of people and those thousands of people’s families.
The disaster was all people could talk about Tuesday. Every American flag is at half mast. Last night I watched New Yorkers, many of them almost hysterical, cheer on their firemen as they hauled away bits and pieces of rubble.
One woman put it all very well when she said, “You know, us New Yorkers, we’re like family. Sure, we bicker a lot, but when something like this happens… I mean, nothing could bring us closer.”
It seems this is true for the entire world.
Russia is putting flowers on the American Embassy. Could you imagine that happening last century?
Israel, (ISRAEL!!!) is giving the U.S. aid. Nothing is quite making sense.
It seems nothing makes world peace come around faster than thousands of people dying.
There’s nothing I can really say here that hasn’t been said on CNN thousands upon thousands of times. Thousands are dead. The World Trade Center has turned to dust. There is a hole the size of a large house in the Pentagon.
Passengers may have saved the lives of hundreds by forcing a plane to crash down in a field near Pittsburgh.
“America” is pissed and wants revenge. Arab Americans don’t know what to do. I imagine they would be scared to leave their house because so many stupid people think that beating up their local Arab could be considered “vengeance.”
Although this disaster is undeniably terrible, there are some things that should be said that NOBODY in the mainstream is saying:
The fact that America practically created Osama bin Laden by putting the Taliban in power in Afghanistan in order to fight the Soviets.
The fact that this is what Iraq goes through every time we bomb them.
The fact that the economic sanctions on Iraq are starving its people.
The fact that the main reason why the people of Palestine were cheering (and DO NOT get me wrong, there is no reason to laugh and pass out candy because your enemy is suffering) is because we have been providing weapons to Israel for years, and what happened on Sept. 11, 2001 happens almost every day in their neighborhood.
Keep in mind, I’m not trying to rationalize or explain what happened. I’m just saying that, even though you may have watched every channel over and over again the past few nights, you may not have gotten the whole story.
As filmmaker Michael Moore would say “America is against terrorism, unless we’re the ones doing the terrorizing.”
Again, let me reiterate my total disgust at what went on Sept. 11. Whoever did this set their own cause back a thousand years. But what is really starting to scare me is the aftermath of this whole deal.
Like when Reagan bombed Libya and Bush I bombed Iraq (and Clinton, and Bush II), Bush II is on the edge of his seat looking to start a war.
We were not attacked by a country last Tuesday, but a small band of people, and we MUST NOT blame a whole country for something they may not have had anything to do with it.
Jordan Scrivner