Remembering 9-11

Today marks the eighth anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center towers in New York, the Pentagon in Washington and the hijacked airliner that crashed in Shanksville, PA, probably en route to another attack on Washington. I remember that day in too vivid detail as an almost surreal day. It started out like any other late summer morning - clear, crisp blue sky, a bit on the coolish side with the promise of brilliant afternoon warmth, a bittersweet reminder of the waning of summer and the onset of autumn and its cooler temperatures. I was sitting at my computer terminal at work shortly before 9 a.m. doing some work while listening to a CD of Irish music, in particular the tune "Raglan Road", when my boss came up to me and signaled for me to remove my headphones so he could speak to me. Doing so, he told me that his wife had just called from home and that she said that she saw on the news that an airplane had hit the World Trade Center, and could I get on the Internet to see what's going on? Naturally, I figured it was just a freak accident, so I attempted to get on to MSNBC's site, but experienced some difficulty in so doing. I figured, well, everyone's trying to get more details of what happened, but when I did manage to finally get on that site, I noticed very grim pictures. This was no little private plane hitting the building, this looked like a big jet that had hit, as flames and thick smoke emanted from the building. It was creepy to see something like that and on a bright, clear and sunny September morning, I had to wonder how something like that could have happened. An accident? The pilot slumping over from a heart attack or something weird? It baffled me, but before I had time to ponder what happened, another jet plane flew into the other tower of the World Trade Center. This was no accident. This was something far more serious and frightening. Something was definitely afoot and it was decidedly sinister and deadly. Not long after that, another jet plane slammed into the Pentagon and yet another into a farm field in Pennsylvania. Yes, this was definitely a coordinated attack on our country and it was terrifying to figure out who did this and why. At work, a large TV was mounted near the Circulation desk of the library where I work, so we all ended up leaving our offices to go out to watch the TV to see what was going on. Needless to say, nothing much got done that day. We watched in absolute, abject horror as the towers fell about an hour after they were hit and the rest of the day seemed to pass in a fog of surrealism.

I am now convinced that the entire attack was a set-up to justify the invasion of Iraq by the Bush/Cheney cabal in a blatant attempt to grab their oil for the United States. Most of the members of that administration were members of an ultra conservative think tank called the Project for a New American Century (PNAC) that had, as its agenda, a strong and muscular US military that would rule the world by military might a la the Roman Empire. In fact, I read a PNAC white paper that was written in the early 90's that called for a pre-emptive strike on Iraq, but said that such a thing would be hard to justify to the American people unless there was a "new Pearl Harbor", in which case the first thing that would happen after that would be to invade Iraq and topple its regime and nationalize its oil. Well, the invasion took place amidst cries of weapons of mass destruction that weren't there and the first thing they did after they toppled the Saddam Hussein regime was to protect the oil fields instead of protecting their cultural treasures. The museums were looted and priceless items were stolen, some which will never be recovered. The whole thing strikes me as utterly criminal and the fact that all of the things outlined in the PNAC white paper came to pass strikes me as a plan that had been in the works for many years. Add to that the cozy relationship between the Bush and bin Laden families for decades and it really leaves you to wonder about the whole thing. I smell a rat, and unfortunately, nothing will ever come of the crimes committed by our government in the name of oil profits and some warped idea of creating an American Empire. I suspect that the 3000+ people who died eight years ago today were victims of a criminal act committed by our government, not just a bunch of disgruntled Saudi Arabians bent on wreaking havoc on our country. Guess we'll never know, I suspect. How very sad for those who lost loved ones on this day eight years ago. My heart goes out to them on this terrible anniversary of a dastardly deed that probably had behind it some very evil people within our very own country who had a very warped agenda in mind. I grieve with each and every one of those families today.