MIGUELGOMEZ said:

Without a doubt.

i remember watching it on tv and my first thought was "Bush is going to use this as an excuse to go after Saddam," then i got into a fist fight with my brother in-law because he said "We should kill all of those damn sandn*ggers!" and I told him that not all arabs were guilty and those responible should be punished.

i also told him that in the grand sweep of history, this was just one minor tragedy. I always get cold and logical when faced with high emotion, i can't help it.
[Edited 9/11/07 17:40pm]

byronic said:

I heard and read plenty of that in the days following 9/11. Just lovely. And black men & women are in Iraq fighting for fools like your brother-in-law.

F-n people.....

uPtoWnNY said:

but at the time, anyone who dared defend those Muslims who weren't responsible, was un-American at best and a traitor. Daring to point out that it wasn't an appropriate response to "nuke them all into the stone-age" could start a fight...

byronic said:

that reaction from people made/makes me absolutely sick. my father (at the time) said things like we should hold mecca hostage with nuclear weapons or something until they produced the terrorists/gave us what we wanted.

byronic said:

My last name is Arabic, so I got hammered repeatedly about that shortly thereafter....I mean, there I was....a staff sergeant (E-6) in the Army, years of very high quality service, and I'm getting nasty looks and all kinds of inappropriate comments and jokes directed my way...such as "look at what your people did... " It was really sobering to see and experience that...though I could never imagine what it must have been like to be Muslim in NYC immediately following everything....

...of course, all I could say to myself was "I'm from New Orleans AND I'm Catholic..." and if I ever travelled the Middle East and someone figured out that I'm an American Soldier, I'd be shot on sight, probably faster than anyone else because over there, I'D be the traitor....

weird time during that period...

I was only eleven when the attacks occured. I'd only visited America once when I was 8. But still, when it happened, I hurt as if I was American myself.

At the age I was, I didn't think things like this happened outside of movies. I found it hard to believe people really wanted to do this to other countries. It was too hard to adjust to. Basically, a lot of things I thought weren't real became VERY real to me that day and I felt very unsafe, despite being halfway around the world.

I watched the second plane hit the tower live on the news. My mum and I were wondering how a "terrible accident" like the first one could have happened, and we saw the second plane come in and both of us thought it was a rescue plane or helicopter for the first tower. Then it hit and me, my mum and the news reporters were speechless.

It was about 11:30pm here in Aus when it happened but I didn't sleep at all that night. I kept turning my TV on to see if anything else had happened because I was so worried. Sure enough, the Pentagon was hit and then the last plane crashed into the field.

I felt like it would never end. It was already on the front page of our biggest paper by the morning. Watching it fall and watching the people running from the debris was just too much.

I remember being in school and one of my friends running it saying "Guys a 747 crashed into the twin towers." We all just laughed in his face, being 13 year olds who regularly played pranks like this, and told him to fuck off. Then he took us to the TV room and we saw it burning. All the teachers were there too. Everyone watching. Then the second plane hit and I remember the BBC reporter totally losing his professionalism for a moment because he was mid speech and he said "oh my God" in this tone of disbelief that I'll never forget. He started stuttering, and we were all shocked. Being cynical, we all knew this was no accident from the second we realised that what my friend said was the truth.

I remember hearing that the pentagon had been hit was far more shocking to me than the towers, then seeing the images of people waving frantically out of tower windows...and the jumpers. Then the towers fell, and my french teacher started crying. It was at that point I remembered my uncle worked in a building that faced the twin towers. He was okay though. He'd slept in that day.

In the days that followed I had constant, recurrent dreams about being trapped on a stairwell in the towers and feeling the whole building lurch downwards as it began to fell. I always woke up at that point full of fear.

I never felt sadness, just pure anger and disgust at terrorists. I think they are pathetic, cowardly and sub-human. They're nothing more than puppets for the equivalent of a CEO running a company dealing in death. Sadness for me came years later when (and I think it's just because I grew up emotionally and could deal with it now and comprehend the scale of what happened), after my AS levels (so this is last year), our economics teacher showed us the 9/11 documentary of those 2 french cameramen who happened to be with firefighters on that day. If you haven't seen it, I recommend you do. I remember the whole class going from happy to stunned silence as they showed that first plane hitting the building. Everyone watched in awe as if it were happening all over again. Eventually the documentary reached the point where the cameramen are in the lobby of Tower 1 and you hear the jumpers hitting the ceiling above them. At that point I think 2 or 3 people in my class started crying (and bear in mind this is a class full of 17-year old cock-sure little tossers), and I remember a really good friend of mine who was sitting next to me had tears in his eyes. I had a lump in my throat and I felt furious. After the program we all left in silence and I remember walking back to my house, sitting down and wanting to cry but being unable to and simply thinking "Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck." I actually felt so angry (yeah yeah, stereotypical teenager feeling anger over sadness blah blah), I wanted to go out and fight against them, and I never feel like that. Ever.

9/11 is the only news event that chokes me up. I don't even get vaguely emotional about 7/7, and I was in London at the time. I saw the bus bomb at Russell Square (my mum was there on the day), and the blood all over the floor, but I don't get emotional. I just think "fucking terrorists" and get on with life. I think it's because of how we dealt with it. We (Brits) just got together and went "Bollocks...oh well!" and moved on with life, despite the media trying to convince us otherwise. I hardly think 7/7 merited a trendy name/date thing after such a minor attack - the IRA achieved far more, and it's just giving the Terrorists credit. It was nothing like 9/11. 9/11 still upsets me to this day, whenever I talk about it, and I'm not even American.

evenstar3 said:

Not to justify it, but it is a natural reaction. The day after 7/7 I was in London again and walking to work when this white-van driver stopped the car next to me, leant out the window and yelled "Fuck off home you dirty shitskin, no one wants you paki cunts in our fucking country." and I looked behind me to see this asian banker just bow his head and walk on, trying to pretend it hadn't happened. I felt sorry for him.

At the same time though, politicians in the Middle East do little to redeem themselves in the eyes of idiotic Americans and evangelical Christians. They don't separate politics and religion clearly (well, America doesn't really, but at least it comes across as logical and speeches aren't delivered wrapped in biblical language), they still see America as a wicked country (and say it), they seemingly do nothing to prevent terrorists from travelling in and out of their countries, to prevent armament exchange, and to prevent radical preaching.

It's a vicious cycle, and, as usual, fucking religion is at the root of everything. I hate religion.

Flowerz said:

my hubby had gotten out of bed 2 get a glass of water, and switched on the tv. At 1st, he thought he was watching a movie- when he realised that it was real he came and told me "the WTC has been hit" sleepily i said, "its happened b4" and rolled over 2 go back 2 sleep

He then told me that the Pentagon had been hit.....

OMG- i bolted out of bed- no one hits the pentagon- i thought a major war was imminent.

i couldnt take it all in- it wasnt until i heard that morning(sept 12th) that i realised that the towers had collapsed

the previous couple of days hold happy memories 4 me and my hubby- we'd had a few days holidays and had been travelling around southern tasmania with our son - his first big day trips anywhere- sept 11 4 us was spent feeding the trout at a trout farm- travelling on sept 12th (sept11 still in america) was very eerie - everyone was "shell- shocked"

i have only ever experienced those extreme feelings of disbelief a few times b4- after the Port Arthur Massacre, and when Diana died- and one time since- the Asian tsunamis- sept 11 is, and will always b, etched on my brain

2 all those who lost loved ones
2 all those serving overseas

[Edited 9/12/07 3:39am]

reneGade20 said:

and look where u r now

Spookymuffin said:

bullshit. the only slight excuse would be if you'd personally been affected by it/lost someone, and to direct your frustration at citizens of the country just because they might be middle eastern is even more foolish.

but yeah, religion is fucking shit.

evenstar3 said:

I've got the look of possibly being middle eastern (I'm Indian but born in Houston, Texas), and based on my experiences as a child in Texas during the Iran hostage crisis, I didn't even want to chance going to the grocery store for a few days after 9/11/01.

One ethnic guy who was working at a fast food drive-thu (not sure which city) was shot dead and I remember the news footage of his children and wife and family sitting in a bare living room crying.

prb said:

thank you

I think the American people are going 2b obsessed with this relatively small disaster for some decades 2 come.

If they need someone 2 blame it should obviously be their own president, or their own political wooliness (same thing really).

Bush was a household name and had established a reputation for himself of being a dangerous, homicidal idiot b4 the time of his second, and this 2nd time, legitimate election.

It's clear and unnerving proof that a disaster of this scale is still insufficient to sensibilise the American people to the consequences of their inaction when faced with an extremely corrupt government.

I'm surprised this freedom fighter/terrorist retaliation effort hasn't happened more often in the past or since.

My sincere and deep sympathies to anyone who suffered a direct loss.

But this didn't surprise me that much it's a shame it didn't change anything in a positive way.

Rightly said:

This to me is like calling Tienanmen square a minor skirmish, and the lack of reform directly related to it a failing of the Chinese people.

All perfectly debatable of course, but I was looking for personal accounts from folks on that day. American foreign policy is unfair, but that's a P&R subject really.

Imago said:

So you don't think that a voter should carry any responsibility for the consequencies of his actions or inaction?

The chinese have their own problems and shouldn't be taken as a comparison to justify the complacency of the americans. Your argument is plain ridiculous.

America is far too powerful that one can just look the other way.
Americans despite all forewarnings elected a thug, and placed weapons of mass and permanent destuction into his hands.
The 2nd election of Bush suprised me more than the 911 incident.

Rightly said:

Come here you

of course, of course



Does anyone want to share their personal account of that day?

My alarm clock was set to NPR, and I turned it off before I heard what they were saying, but before I did I noticed that the tone in their voices was weird and it worried me. So, after I got up I turned on the news, I believe it was just before the second tower went down. Sat there in shock and horror like everyone else. And was extra horrified when I considered who our leader was at that moment; I hoped we didn't know who was behind it, because I was afraid he would pull out the nukes.

I think I skipped school, but later I did go to work. . . one of my friends/coworkers was just beside herself. . . very religious girl, and struggling to understand why her beloved God would do this. . . I think she saw for the first time how my athiesm could be a sort of comfort. I was upset, but at least I wasn't doing battle with my creator. I was just facing a fucked-up world that had gotten a bit more fucked-up that morning.

And would get much, much more fucked-up in the coming years.

ufoclub said:

one of my closest friends at the time was indian. the looks people gave him when we'd go out somewhere in the months afterwards were so full of hate, it was unreal.