7

"To be honest, I forgot that today was The September 11th. It is my best friends Patrice's 21st birthday. I managed to remember that but I missed such an anniversary of heartbreak. It has only been 7 years and I was old enough to remember the day and its international significance.

Regrettably, I think the nation, Americans have forgotten. The attacks of September 11th don't usually enter my conscious knowledge except for on Septermber 11th or in sparsely occuring conversations about terrorism.

Other than those individuals who lost someone they knew, and some neurotic patriots, I feel like September 11th has left our memory, just as the war has left our memory. It is a little creepy and sad that as I sit here writing my irrelevant blog, texting friends, and listening to music, there are thousands of people I don't know and will probably never meet, fighting in a foreign country, basically, so I have the liberty to write this.

I do not support the war. I believe it commenced under false pretenses and I feel that the troops are being misused and abused and their families are suffering unnecesesarily. America is damaging it diplomatic credibility and compromising its power.

But we all forget there are people fighting. We forget about the day that served as a catalyst for this inevitable war (because they was gon' get this oil and business, no matter what).

Besides the obvious damage that was caused that day, there are a few more, less discussed infractions. Take the picture featured above. I understand the frustrating pain of September 11th. People going about their business, working, traveling, and commuting are suddenly thrust into an intense inferno of culture clash, political strife, and extremist ideology, just by going to work or flying home. It is terrifying that at any moment, at any place, any one of us can become a casuality of ideological warfare.

Nonetheless, such attitudes as is demonstrated in the above photo is dangerous for the struggle against violence and for preventative efforts against future attacks.

Muslims are not inherent terrorists or evil or anything that any other human being is not. As with any group of people, there are functioning extremist parasites that take ideas, theory, postulates, etc. and manipulate them to fit with their own opinions. For example, the Qu'ran does not actually command women to cover themselves head to toe. Men, who excluded women from the interpretation of God and Muhammad's direction, came up with that to curtail lustful thoughts and adulterous or fornicative relationships.

So the Muslims are not to blame. The bottom line is, you can kill as many people as you want. You cannot kill an ideology. And for every 'terrorist' we are convinced is being killed, there are dozens of his or her children who have already accepted the same poisonous philosophy and will commit the same violence.

So the fight is futile. You cannot win against a people who are not afraid to die. Sorry for sounding so liberal, but diplomacy will always be the best policy. But by all means, play cops and robbers for another century.