9/11 - a.k.a. "Patriot Day"

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9/11 - a.k.a. "Patriot Day"

I didn't think this blog would ever be finished. I erased it accidently not once, or twice, but three times. My husband said to me, "If it were me, I'd write about something else."

But 9/11 still haunts me, as it haunts many Americans. Say, "9/11", and something is triggered. In me: a sadness, a pain -- of loss, of my friend's brother, and knowing how our loss was used by the administration as an excuse to unleash bloodshed and violence unheard of since the 1960's. (uh-oh, I forgot, the 1970's, the 1980's, the 1990's).

I guess the United States has never lacked for excuses to strike out with violence, therby inciting even more retaliation. And what do the 'terrorists' (the Taliban, Hamas, the various Iraqi groups, etc.) want?

What does al-Quaeda want -- the overthrow of the United States? Ain't gonna happen. Prod the sleeping dog, and it finally rouses and bites back. You think the master dog in the White House is bad? If the American People get angry, they will get off their couches and stop being potatoes. No, that is not a viable option.
(Of course, to al-Quaeda, we are not the primary target. According to Le Monde, they want to destroy the democratic movement in ALL Muslim countries and lead them into holy war [with the rest of the world]. Oops -- that is a bigger one than I can handle. I need to retreat into my belly button on that. (ref: Le Monde 9/12/06 quoted by Jefferson Morley)

Perhaps they want to destroy the State of Israel. No, I don't think that is going to happen, either. For one thing, as long as the Holocaust of World War II and the deaths of millions by Hitler are STILL IN LIVING MEMORY, I think the world at large will not permit the destruction of Israel, on humanitarian reasons. For another thing, the American government has probably made promises to protect Israel. For another thing, Israel is being kept on a tight leash by those promises, and if America doesn't hold up its end of the bargain, Israel will use ALL of its power to strike out before going down. It will not be pretty, and several oil-producing countries, if not all of them, will be destroyed. Holocaust. I am only speculating here, of course. And it would be nice if some Israelis would realize that all human beings, even Palestinians, deserve respect, just because they are human beings. I KNOW there has been terrorist bombings, and still are, but I speak from having been there and observed how people treat each other. If you treat someone like an animal, they will act like an animal. But who am I to criticize? Just a gentle reminder that if you offer peace, sometimes peace comes back to you. Sometimes. Just an idea.

Perhaps they (I'm thinking Taliban, here) want to keep the women barefoot in burkhas, uneducated. I don't think that will happen, either. Give a woman a book and the ability to read it, ANY WOMAN; ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD, and she will NEVER give that back. More importantly, she will FIGHT for that opportunity for her DAUGHTER. I'm not talking about the opportunity to read the latest best seller, or even a newspaper. For many people (I'm thinking Afghanistan, here) the opportunity to read the World of the Prophet is more precious than anything else. (Well, maybe they would read the newspaper: politics ends up being pretty important, too). The Taliban would deny that opportunity to women. I think they will be fought by their own women, as long as those women have strength and means to do so, and have seen that it can be done.

NOTE: None of this is reasearched, or proven. I have NO inside information. I am NOT an informed source.
I am "spitting into the wind". But I don't think the wishes of Hamas and the like will ultimately be honored:
a Peace MUST be worked out.

The big question is, why does it have to be done by fighting? Why the violence and bloodshed?

The War on Terrorism:
Cost in Human Lives (estimates)

American soldiers, deaths: 4,155
American soldiers, wounded: 30,568 (note: this is the 'official' number of wounded. estimated is 100,000
Estimated number of brain injuries in American Iraq war vets: 320,000.
Other military deaths, Iraq: 314 (official U.S. numbers)
Other military deaths, Afghan. 690 (official U.S. numbers)
Iraqi deaths (estimates): 1,255,000

These estimates are courtesy of the website againstwar.com

Cost of the war in Iraq financially:
Approximately $553,188,500,000 - the cost goes up about $100,000 every 3 or 4 minutes, so by the time you read this, it will be about 20 or 30 million low. (I had to change that by a figure of TEN when I checked the dollar amount a half hour later!)
estimate courtesy of costofwar.com

My question: after $553,188,500 plus -- how come we still can't find al-Quaeda in Iraq?

On the following excerpt, my comments are in brackets: [ ]
NY Magazine .com sums it up:

9/11 by the Numbers
Death, destruction, charity, salvation, war, money, real estate, spouses, babies, and other September 11
statistics.

The initial numbers are indelible: 8:46 a.m. and 9:02 a.m. Time the burning towers stood: 56 minutes and
102 minutes. Time they took to fall: 12 seconds. From there, they ripple out.
Total number killed in attacks (official figure as of 9/5/02): 2,819
Number of firefighters and paramedics killed: 343
Number of NYPD officers: 23
Number of Port Authority police officers: 37
Number of employees who died in Tower One: 1,402
Number of employees who died in Tower Two: 614
Number of employees lost at Cantor Fitzgerald: 658 [note: one was my friend's brother]
Number of U.S. troops killed in Operation Enduring Freedom: 22
Number of nations whose citizens were killed in attacks: 115 [it was the WORLD Trade Center]
Bodies found "intact": 289
Body parts found: 19,858
[a finger, a toe, part of a head. I spoke personally to a driver who watched people bag "human remains"
as he loaded his truck with debris from the building for removal to Staten Island - Stromek]
Number of families who got no remains: 1,717 [some were vaporized in the fire]
Estimated units of blood donated to the New York Blood Center: 36,000
Total units of donated blood actually used: 258 [there were relatively few victims]
Number of people who lost a spouse or partner in the attacks: 1,609
Estimated number of children who lost a parent: 3,051
Percentage of Americans who knew someone hurt or killed in the attacks: 20 [20% of 241,424,177 =48 million]
Number of firefighters on leave for respiratory problems by January 2002: 300
Number of funerals attended by Rudy Giuliani in 2001: 200
Tons of debris removed from site: 1,506,124
Days fires continued to burn after the attack: 99
Jobs lost in New York owing to the attacks: 146,100
Days the New York Stock Exchange was closed: 6
Point drop in the Dow Jones industrial average when the NYSE reopened: 684.81
Days after 9/11 that the U.S. began bombing Afghanistan: 26
Total number of hate crimes reported to the Council on American-Islamic Relations nationwide since 9/11: 1,714
Economic loss to New York in month following the attacks: $105 billion
Estimated cost of cleanup: $600 million
Total FEMA money spent on the emergency: $970 million
Estimated amount donated to 9/11 charities: $1.4 billion
Estimated amount of insurance paid worldwide related to 9/11: $40.2 billion
Estimated amount of money needed to overhaul lower-Manhattan subways: $7.5 billion
Amount of money recently granted by U.S. government to overhaul lower-Manhattan subways: $4.55 billion
Estimated amount of money raised for funds dedicated to NYPD and FDNY families: $500 million
Percentage of total charity money raised going to FDNY and NYPD families: 25
Average benefit already received by each FDNY and NYPD widow: $1 million
Percentage increase in law-school applications from 2001 to 2002: 17.9
Percentage increase in Peace Corps applications from 2001 to 2002: 40
Percentage increase in CIA applications from 2001 to 2002: 50
Number of songs Clear Channel Radio considered "inappropriate" to play after 9/11: 150
Apartments in lower Manhattan eligible for asbestos cleanup: 30,000
Number of apartments whose residents have requested cleanup and testing: 4,110
Number of Americans who changed their 2001 holiday-travel plans from plane to train or car: 1.4 million
Estimated number of New Yorkers suffering from post-traumatic-stress disorder as a result of 9/11: 422,000

But the numbers don't add up. The United States has shot itself in the foot in the war on terrorism: we have killed another 4,155 of our children in vengence, on the wrong country (Iraq didn not supply the 9/11 terrorists, Afghanistan may have trained them). 320,000 Americans with brain damage from concussions secondary to improvised explosive devices? What about American households disrupted by extension after extension of tours of duty, not because the person signs up again, but because they are told to stay in Iraq and given no choice? Home foreclosed upon because the family cannot pay the mortage between their job and the military pay. Children who have never seen their parent?

OK, I personally do not think anyone should even sign up for the military; I am a pacifist. But some of these people went to school on the ROTC -- they thought they would never be called up. I guess it is just their bad luck they chose to get a "free education" and instead are getting blown up in the name of oil.

And 1,255,000 million dead Iraqis? Their war is a different matter all together -- factions fighting against each other, and all against our presence there.

Which brings us back to the World Trade Center. It was the center of business, trade, money, finance. But people do the work. People who have/had families, loved ones, friends, survivors. Why did one person die in a blaze but another make it down the stairs? Why did one fireperson live after being rescued, but his rescuer died going in after the next one?

9/11 echoes on in our memories, with unanswered questions, haunting us, forever.


- Stromek