I've largely avoided swimming in 9/11 as the media would prefer. But I did one thing - I listened to Kevin Cosgrove's 911 call from WTC 2 released in the Zacarias Moussaoui trial. Hat tip to
Cunning Realist for the pointer.
You can download the recording here - along with video time synced with the call. It's large - about 40MB zipped, so you can't just stream it. It's very disturbing.
On the recording, you hear a gentleman - could be any one of us - pleading for help as the building burns around him. That was someone's son, husband, and father. You might feel sad and angry after watching the video. Imagine how his friends and relatives felt. Consider how you feel from hearing that one individual, let alone the 3,000 others.
After 9/11 we had a President, a Congress, and the mightiest military on the planet to find those that did this and bring them to justice. Overlooking the fact that none of that has really happened, imagine if we didn't have those things. What if we lived not in the most powerful nation on earth, but one of those smaller ones. What if we didn't have a government that could say to us "Go about your lives, we can take care of this." What if they called on us to bring those individuals to justice? What if there was no leadership to make that call? Would we take it upon ourselves to right this wrong? I don't have a Predator drone or a Special Forces unit to deploy. I don't have night vision goggles or assault rifles. I can improvise, though. I'd be hard pressed to defeat a tank, but I could probably do some harm to a checkpoint of soldiers. I can drive a truck into a building if nothing else.
Around the world in places like Iraq, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Palestine, and throughout Africa, there are people pleading for help as their home burns around them, or as soldiers shoot at them as they flee - or much, much worse. They are someone's son, daughter, husband, wife, and father or mother. You might feel sad and angry after thinking about that. Imagine how their friends and relatives feel.
Do they have a President or Congress or the mightiest military on the planet to find those that did it and bring them to justice? Do they need to do it themselves?
What if we were the ones that blew up their house or shot at them as they fled? What if we were the terrorists? How would they fight back?
What's the lesson of 9/11? After innocent Americans were killed, we turned our attention on two nations - one who was involved in the act and one who was not. Along the way we targeted the military but we killed a lot of civilians as well. Will the friends and relatives of the civilians not blame us? How will they fight back? How long will they wait? 5 years on and none of us have forgotten 9/11. I doubt we will in 20. Will we see the forgotten survivors of Haditha in 20 years in the video recordings of airport terminal security tapes after some other terrible act?
I ask these things not to be sympathetic to those who attacked America but to ask everyone to consider two things in light of 9/11.
1) Are we sure that those who attacked America didn't have a legitimate grievance, even if the resulting act was horribly far from legitimate? Did they have their own 9/11? Did they hear friends or family pleading for their lives?
2) In our response to this terrorist act, how many 9/11s are we creating around the world? How many in Fallujah heard the cries of those at the pointy end of our spear?
Ask yourselves "What is their 9/11?"