As I'm sure you all know by now, the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon, the brains behind the strongest military in the world, both fell victims to terrorist attacks Tuesday morning, September 11th, 2001.
I found out roughly an hour after it had happened. I watched people jumping from the building because a million-to-one gamble with the streets of New York was still better than what would be certain death inside the tower. I watched in disbelief as the World Trade Center towers collapsed one after the other. I had never been to the World Trade Center and hell, I'd never even been to New York City, but my stomach sank as that giant cloud of dust and smoke engulfed southern Manhatten. I knew that as I watched that building collapse, that thousands of people were either being killed or being handed their death sentences beneath 110 stories' worth of steel, glass, and concrete. I didn't know a single one of those people and I still felt sick.
The networks won't say what I'm about to say, but I feel it has to be said: There's no doubt in my mind that the victims weren't all saints. I bet a lot of 'em were downright nasty sons of bitches who should never be allowed to reproduce, but they still didn't deserve to die, they certainly didn't deserve to die like THAT, and nobody, NOBODY had the right to order their executions. Then I watched people actually celebrating these cowardly attacks, and I felt even sicker. The people who cheer at the pain of others, especially when the wound is as severe as the one inflicted by this attack, are no better than the people they're cheering for.
When Timothy McVeigh was executed, a lot of people felt his death was too easy, and I agreed. He deserved to be hung by his scrotum with a rusty barbed wire. However, in this case, even the innovators of the Spanish Inquisition could not come up with a punishment fitting for the person responsible for this attack. We could ALMOST kill him, revive him from the brink of death only to nearly kill him again and we could do this once for every life he took (and this would easily go on for years considering the death toll), and his ultimate exectution would still be too easy for him.
You must remember that this attack did not just end the lives of the people caught in the attack or exposed to excessive smoke and dust. For every life lost, there is a group of friends and family to grieve them. Their lives have now been ruined, too. They will live the rest of their lives with a feeling of emptiness that I would not wish on my worst enemies.
I'm an American, born and bred, and we Americans have a proud tradition of being incredible bitches to each other when everything in the grand scheme of things is going smoothly, then overcoming our differences and coming together to overcome a common goal, so that we may get back to bitching amongst ourselves. I'm not a fan of President Bush. I don't like him, I don't like his ideas, I don't like the fact that his daughters got a slap on the wrist for violating a zero tolerance policy that he himself signed into law, I don't like the way he ran his campaign, and I don't think he really won the election. I don't care how he handles this crisis, I'm still not going to vote for him in 2004 and I don't care if that means I end up voting for Nader. But I'm gonna support him in getting the bastard who did this and right now I'm actually glad he's a trigger-happy Texan because I want to wipe off the map anyone who tries to keep us from getting our man, because we're Americans, and that's what we do.
There are a lot of things wrong with this country, but I still think it's the best damn country in the world. I'm very patriotic and I think that anybody who messes with America deserves to burn. So I'm going to do what I can to help out and I want you to, as well. Give blood, volunteer at the Red Cross, go to a candle-lighting service, adopt a highway, join the Navy, I don't care! But first thing tomorrow I'm going to see if I'm eligible for a blood donation and if I am, then they can hook me up and take as much as they need. And when I make more, I'll go see if they want a second helping.
My point is this: Do whatever you can to help solve one of the many problems risen by this unjustified and inexcusible attack on America. There'll be plenty of time to bitch at each other later.
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