Where were you on 9.11.2001 ?

[angelaaa]

[TheWordpressGuy]

I was at home, when I saw the incident on TV.

It was shocking to see it live, especially the second crash..

[angelaaa]

[ChristyK]

It's one of those moments I'll never forget. Just like being in my high school cafeteria when the space shuttle Challenger blew up.

On 9/11 I was heading out the door to a playgroup for my boys. My husband called me on the phone and said 'turn on the tv'. I stopped by my neighbors house and told her the news with tears in my eyes. I then went on with life for the boys' sake and would occasionally leave the playgroup building to call my husband for an update and was crushed as I heard the second building also fell.

Christy

(Must admit I had to laugh though when my sister in Chicago asked if I could see the smoke. I told her I was hours away and it would be like seeing our home town of Indianapolis from her home in Chicago. Funny how everyone forgets how much more there is to New York than just NYC.)

[Lynn Terry]

[WAHumor]

[stephfoster]

[angelaaa]

[cheaputils]

I was at work, it was early afternoon for us when it all happened. It looked like a movie, not real. All work stopped as everyone clustered around what few TV sets we are allowed.

I think it finally galvanized the American people that terror attacks from abroad could really happen in their homeland. I think the USA thought itself reasonably safe from terrorism up until then and what happened on that day was a wake-up call. In the UK we had of course suffered frequent terrorism because of the troubles in Ireland.

I'm not sure that going into Iraq has been the right response though, it has opened up Pandora's Box and has made an unstable region even worse, with western culture seemingly a legitimate target for even more terrorists. Was the loss of life to American and British service personnel and even more innocent Iraqi civilians worth it?

[angelaaa]

[cheaputils]

Valid point angelaa,

Has it not been proved though, that there was no link between 9/11 and Saddam Hussein? No WMD have been found either.

Here in the UK, there's now a groundswell of opposition to the war because the reason put before Parliament, which was voted on by our MPs, has turned out to be a complete fabrication, and since then Blair has tried to make out that regime change was the reason for war all along.

No, the real point I was making, was that, since Bush/Blair allegedly wanted Saddam out for killing his own people, was it really a good idea to kill another 60,000 of them, then find ourselves in a modern day Vietnam situation? Neither Bush or Blair has an apparent exit strategy, and are busy trying to inflict 'democracy', or their version of it, on an historically tribal area already hostile to Western involvement. It's a no win situation.

Saddam was being contained by the use of sanctions, since he's been ousted what we have is chaos, lawlessness and killing on a scale that may be difficult to stop. Containment was working and insurgency wasn't a problem, but it's all changed now, and we've given extremists more excuses to target both of our countries by our government's policies.

It just seems a sad, sad situation that both our countries have blundered into it, gung-ho, seemingly without a thought for how it will all end. If they had a plan, it's been badly misjudged, and not maintaining the moral high ground (Guantanemo, Abu Graib, Rendition) has left us open to all kinds of criticisms which we just can't defend.

And of course, the very cynical would argue that the real reason for going to war all along was oil, and that's why Iran are next on the list.

Sorry, i've gone completely off topic.

[alchemist]

[MommyEnterprises]

[timefortravel]

[HGPgal]