Nine months after 9/11

Nine Months After 9/11/01

So here it is, June 2002, and the US is still in Afghanistan trying to find the rest of the terrorists, or so they say. An oppressive regime has been toppled (the Taliban), which is good just because of the terrible way Afghanistan women were treated there. But, you know, you can't exactly objectively judge a non-American, non-Western culture by Western standards. So I'm sure there was a lot of harm done in Afghanistan also, by the sudden downfall of the government--consequences that aren't blazoned in the newspapers and on TV. And among the simplest of consequences--people were killed, people are still being killed, people will continue to be killed. Violent death is not an expression of peace.

The WTC site is mostly cleaned up by now, though there is still a lot of rubble there, but no standing structures anymore. I went to the site in early January, just to see it, to bear witness I guess, whatever that really means. It was cold and drizzling; the whole area was eerily deserted, just a few workers, but barely any people besides them. A couple of friends and I walked around, trying to get as close to the site as we could (and not cross the barriers). We finally stopped at a little memorial site, with bedraggled teddy bears and laminated signs of support. Buildings and telephone poles were plastered with 'missing person' signs, all starting off with some variation of "Last seen on the morning of 9/11 going in to work in the WTC. Any information please call xxx-xxxx."

The smell still lingered in the air. Acrid, like burnt steel, burnt flesh. That was what I carried away--not the mental images of the site, but the smell.