Blood is Red, Smoke is White, and Tears are Blue
A Perspective
I remember seeing the
second plane crash on
TV
I remember the
debris, the way it flew and fell, so many papers like a
ticker tape parade of happier times in this district.
I remember thinking it was a movie, “
Bad special effects” I thought
I remember thinking “
Why?”
My mom woke me up, a situation similar to so many.
“America is under attack” she said, choking back tears.
Unbelieving, unknowing the true scope of things I sat in my bed, groggy from the less than four hours of sleep I’d been granted, and thought of the implications. I thought of my comfortable place in this world, “Would it effect me?” I thought. I remember delineating on whether it was an American as in Oklahoma City, or some foreign threat. I remember thinking of the implications to privacy. All of these thoughts all but disappeared after I saw the first footage. It’s not about me any more, it bit deep into my soul but it’s not about me. Yet in another way it is precisely about me, it effected me as nothing could. This, I thought, is the sort of stuff to which one can never get desensitized. The first picture was as painful as the last.
I was awake when it happened, but I knew nothing of it. This in itself pains me, as though I could have done something, as though I could have helped. As I was falling asleep, people were dying, suffering. As I switched my CD before bed, thousands of lives were taken in what is the most horrific and blatant disregard of human life to date.
People hunger for someone to blame, but a finger pointed is one less hand to join the world together, one less person to aid the cause. An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind, it has been said. This is the center of this conflict. Blind hatred culminated into an attack in which thousands of innocent lives were forfeit. We should not, and I shall not, perpetuate this sort of wanton and destructive behavior. Now is a time to join the world to accurately determine who is responsible and bring them to justice. There is no reason to try to make them pay the number of lives that we have paid unless there are that many guilty parties. Do not "nuke 'em" as so many people are saying all over IRC. This will only contribute to the hatred and evil will grow. An act such as this would not decimate the numbers of terrorists in the world, it would instead cause others to become violent to avenge the deaths of the fallen. Those responsible should undoubtedly be dealt with, and swiftly, but accuracy, at this point, is more important than effectiveness.
I fully stand behind our leaders and trust that they will make the right decision.