Posted by Adam on September 11, 2001, at 14:06:19
In reply to I'm terribly saddened., posted by akc on September 11, 2001, at 9:25:25
I know a bunch of people in Manhattan. None of them work in the World Trade Center, but a couple are on Wall Street, not far away. Most of the others live and work further uptown, mostly Upper West Side. I can't get through to any of them. My g.f. used to live in New York, working for CBS and getting singing gigs on the side, and knows a gazillion people on the Island, through work or fun. She's a wreck. The lack of information is frustrating and frightening.
I also lived in Washington D.C. for a few years, literally right up the streed from the White House (16th St.), and worked for a Federal agency (NIH)...I knew no one at the Pentagon, but I can't imagine what must be going on right now in the city, and especially in any govt. facility. I assume everyone has been sent home...it must be absolute chaos and fear on the Beltway and on the Metro, especially as you move South, towards 395...I'm friends with some people who live in Crystal City, right next to the Pentagon. I mean, they could sit on their balcony and watch the plane crash into it, probably, if they were around.
My heart goes out to anyone who has a friend or a loved one in NY, or DC, who may have been at risk. I have to wonder, given that one of the planes flew out of Boston, if I know someone, somewhere, who has been hit hard by this attack. The odds don't seem that remote, given the huge number of casualties that must have accumulated since this began. Six degrees of separation? Try three, or two, max. Yeah, it could be a lot. As of now, I have no info. I guess I'll just have to wait for news.
I rather cringe at the thought of the aftermath. Not just the immediate human suffering that results from the airline crashes, etc., but the inevitable retaliatory action our country is likely to take. I think it's a safe bet that this is the handiwork of Islamic extremists, given the state of things in the Middle East, our boycotting the Council on Racism under rather flimsy pretenses, etc. My boss at the NIH was an Israeli, and I became pretty close with some members of her family and other Israelis in neighboring labs. There was one woman from Lebanon, also, and I actually witnessed some pretty explosive confrontations on the day a bus exploded in Tel Aviv, maybe '94 or '95, I can't remember now. It was crystal clear to me from my time working with these people that peace in the Middle East was a long way off, and that the support of the US for Israel would inevitably drag us deeper in. With the first attack on the WTC still fresh in our memories, it was easy to predict. My boss said to me, in that thick accent of hers that I loved so much "You have to understand that these people are crazy..they will never, ever stop so long as there is Jew in Israel, until either we are all dead, or they are all dead." Again, like I said, this was shortly after "Peace" in the Middle East was declared. She didn't believe it for a second. I'm not sure she really wanted it, not on those terms, anyway.
I knew better than to argue with her. She was my match and then some, and that is saying much. But during that conversation, I did make one retort: "Well, maybe they're crazy, but we're all crazy." She laughed in a world-weary, sincere way, in a way that a person who actually had witnessed acts of war in her own country does. "Yes, this is true, you're right." She said, and sighed.
All over the world, in the Balkans, the Caucasus, the Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa, Central America, and on and on, this is the stuff of life. Hunger, violence, disease, hatred. I will not ask God for help or guidance.
We should know better already, than to prove again and again that we are the world's most dangerous animal. If we were given life and free will by a sentient creator, and do the things we routinely do and have done since time imemorable, in the name of justice or faith, what could any thinking creature do but weep at our callowness, our vanity, and our lack of self-restraint. I cannot imagine the US will do anything but retaliate with the biggest show of military might since the Gulf War, maybe worse, and it will solve absolutely nothing. I shudder at the thought of the near future. More terrible things are coming, of that I am quite sure.> I know we have been lucky in the U.S., but this is terrible. Terrorists attacks, wherever they occur, always sadden me. But to fly airplanes into buildings holding 40,000 people -- and causing one to collapse (I'm sure a goal of the terrorist) -- I'm sure the terrorists of the world will salute this act. I've always felt another's pain pretty deeply. I need to make sure this does not trigger me -- my t is going out of town, I'm having surgery, but this is awful -- I'll never understand why anyone thinks death brings answers. I'm terrible saddened, terribly saddened.
>
> akc
poster:Adam
thread:11115
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20010909/msgs/11151.html