How did you feel then? How do you feel now?

[DuFresne]

On 9/11, I was in 8th grade. I was home that day faking sick, lying in bed, trying to get some sleep, when mom rushed in to tell me to turn my TV on. A plane or something (or something?) had hit one of the Twin Towers, "but they think it might have been an accident" (like a plane's ever accidently hit a fucking modern world wonder, but hell, we were all naive at the time :/ ). I was watching for a while, I believe on MSNBC, listening closely to the reports and watching smoke billlow out of the co-tallest building in the world, when I witnessed a huge fireball burst from the other one. MSNBC hadn't had a good angle to see it, but I soon learned that another plane had crashed into the other tower, disintegrating any chance that this was a fucking accident.

Although I didn't like Bush then, which had more to do with the simple fact that he was a republican than anything substantial, I reacted like you'd expect a thirteen-year-old to: I wanted to see our military, our invincible, greatest-fighting-force-ever-assembled military, to go into Afghaniturkmeniranistan, and show that bearded asshole that fucking with America is a not-so-good idea.

We never got him. We cut and ran. We then launched that strike against Iraq, captured their leader, got stuck there, which brings us to today.

I don't know if our government did or did not have a valuable role in orchaestrating 9/11, but it's appearant to me that they have indeed used the attacks to gain their necessary support for their war in Iraq, and I am quite disillusioned. Yes, SSpad, history certainly favors the cynics and pessimists in this world, but in the words of Leonard Cohen (not trying to name-drop, just giving credit):

I don't consider myself a pessimist. I think of a pessimist as someone who is waiting for it to rain. And I feel soaked to the skin.