We have been welcomed to the reality in which most people of this world live.

I’m tired of hearing words like “unbelievable” or “unfathomable”.

Suffering and destruction like this have been commonplace forever. It is what the record of history is about. It is what the larger and older cultures and religions and their texts are about. How do nations and peoples co-exist and cooperate? How do we handle war when they inevitably fail at it? People have been asking this question for thousands of years, and they wrote it all down.

Perhaps you will gain insight from reading your Great Books.

Keep writing and sharing of yourself. You are special.

Jonathan

David

The attack was directed against the United States, not against the Western World in general, or ‘democracy’ or ‘freedom’.

I think Frank Rich is talking about what was happening inside the USA. Outside, your country, or better said: your governement, did perform some actions that can only be described as acts of war against other nations (Iraq, Sudan, Afghanistan, Libia). Now fractions of extremists seem to have been seeking vengeance for those actions.

All this time I had the impression that you (you is the citizens of the USA) had no idea about what was going on outside the borders of your country, hence the shock you received from the (barbaric) attacks last tuesday.

I think most people at the other side of the Atlantic Ocean fear that the USA might drag us into their war. I think you and I share the same fear about a pending war, allthough the impact on our personal lives will be different.

I have visited one of the concentration camps of the second World War when I was in high school. That visit has turned me into a firm believer that war is never an answer to any kind of problem. War will always demand casualties of innocent people who are at the wrong spot, at the wrong time, often with the wrong background.

The war in the Balkan countries have shown us recently what war means to a people, what power-seeking idiots can achieve if they know what buttons to push.

The ‘brains’ behind the attack of last tuesday hope that a war-like response will be given by the USA government, because it will give them a basis to fortify their power over their people.

I don’t know either what the appropiate response will be. I am just afraid that an appropriate answer does not exist.

Since this past second anniversary of the tragedy at WTC, I have found myself reading as much as I can find, preferably first-hand stories, of that horrendous day in downtown Manhattan… This is how I came across your site. First allow me to say that I have a deep and abiding emotional and aesthetic connection to Manhattan, even though I am in Florida. My closest friend lives at 5th Av and 9th St, just down the sidewalk from the 9th St PATH station, and I have, since 87, visited him almost 30 times. Each time, my stay was at least a week and most times 2 weeks, giving me the chance to say that I have “lived” in Manhattan for about 1 year. As such, I have many many friends and aquaintences there and have come, over time, to love NYC fervently, and indeed, consider it to be my second home. Unfortunately, I have not been back since the election ( crapshoot…? ) of November,2000. I labor under a rather strange duality, inthat I have both an inescapable yearning to go back, on its own merit, yet also to see for myself the remnant of such gargantuan hate… and at the same time, *not wanting* to see the gravesite of so many thousands and also of those once-towering titans of the NYC landscape I had seen so many times. There is ( or was ) an electrifying view of the skyline from a small engineering college on the Hudson in Hoboken, and from my first visit, I had returned many times ( having to literally sneak onto the campus each time, which seemed to only enhance the experience… the little boy in us really does seem not to die easily ) to take in that breathtaking sight. I am fearful that looking scross the river and not seeing those towers will be more than I can bear… having said that, I am planning to be back again this coming spring and let the “chips fall where they may”… The thing that haunts me most about what happened there is that I have no way to contact the majority of my friends and people I have come to know on a less formal basis there, having never gotten their last names or addresses. It bothers me greatly to know that at least one, if not more, of these people with whom I have shared time, could have been in those buildings that morning… If so, I would never know and so, for myself, there has never been a sense of closure. I am not sure why I am even writing this note, but in some strange way, perhaps it helps to communicate this very minor part of a much larger collective, to you… again, not really even knowing why… on September 11, 2001, I could feel New York screaming in pain, fear and outrage, and it was frustrating beyond description not to have been there to do, in my own small way, anything I could do to ease the suffering and just be part of making things, somehow, better again… I have mixed feelings about going back next spring, but go I shall… I need to be there, if only for a while…

Michael

Since this past second anniversary of the tragedy at WTC, I have found myself reading as much as I can find, preferably first-hand stories, of that horrendous day in downtown Manhattan… This is how I came across your site. First allow me to say that I have a deep and abiding emotional and aesthetic connection to Manhattan, even though I am in Florida. My closest friend lives at 5th Av and 9th St, just down the sidewalk from the 9th St PATH station, and I have, since 87, visited him almost 30 times. Each time, my stay was at least a week and most times 2 weeks, giving me the chance to say that I have “lived” in Manhattan for about 1 year. As such, I have many many friends and aquaintences there and have come, over time, to love NYC fervently, and indeed, consider it to be my second home. Unfortunately, I have not been back since the election ( crapshoot…? ) of November,2000. I labor under a rather strange duality, inthat I have both an inescapable yearning to go back, on its own merit, yet also to see for myself the remnant of such gargantuan hate… and at the same time, *not wanting* to see the gravesite of so many thousands and also of those once-towering titans of the NYC landscape I had seen so many times. There is ( or was ) an electrifying view of the skyline from a small engineering college on the Hudson in Hoboken, and from my first visit, I had returned many times ( having to literally sneak onto the campus each time, which seemed to only enhance the experience… the little boy in us really does seem not to die easily ) to take in that breathtaking sight. I am fearful that looking scross the river and not seeing those towers will be more than I can bear… having said that, I am planning to be back again this coming spring and let the “chips fall where they may”… The thing that haunts me most about what happened there is that I have no way to contact the majority of my friends and people I have come to know on a less formal basis there, having never gotten their last names or addresses. It bothers me greatly to know that at least one, if not more, of these people with whom I have shared time, could have been in those buildings that morning… If so, I would never know and so, for myself, there has never been a sense of closure. I am not sure why I am even writing this note, but in some strange way, perhaps it helps to communicate this very minor part of a much larger collective, to you… again, not really even knowing why… on September 11, 2001, I could feel New York screaming in pain, fear and outrage, and it was frustrating beyond description not to have been there to do, in my own small way, anything I could do to ease the suffering and just be part of making things, somehow, better again… I have mixed feelings about going back next spring, but go I shall… I need to be there, if only for a while…

Michael