9 / 11 / 01

Twentieth Anniversary of the World Trade Center terrorist attack. RIP, 2,977 lost at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and in the plane downed by passengers in a Pennsylvania field, That plane was believed to be headed for The White House. The death toll includes plane passengers, firefighters, police and other first responders. There have been approximately 1,140 additional deaths so far in the aftermath of the attack attributed to injuries caused by cleaning up toxins at the site.

Immediately after the event, international sympathy toward America was perhaps the highest it's ever been. Shortly after, George Bush and his advisors began chipping away at that goodwill by making grandiose, irrational plans to "fight terrorism." Some allies joined as, I suppose, a gesture of loyalty to an old friend. Iraq. Then Afghanistan. Too many killed in both countries.* The 20-year enterprise can be called a tragic mistake, or a failure, or a collection of war crimes. In the two decades since 9/11, American foreign policy has gone seriously askew, culminating in the immoral, criminal presidency of Donald Trump. We have lost the respect of old friends. Our domestic policies turned drastically ultra-right under Trump.

The worst of our citizens are all that the world seems to know of us, now. There was an insurrection on Jan. 6 this year, grave crimes yet to be fully punished. Joe Biden is a good man who has turned back the most cruel domestic policies of Trump. Conspiracy theories about Covid-19 are killing people. The Mad Karens rule Youtube. Biden is steadfast in his messaging: hate, lies and cruelty will not be tolerated here. Fingers crossed that the mob will be held back enough to hold ground gained since the last election. Fingers crossed that we can save our democracy.

*Sources I checked gave varying numbers of civilian, military, contractors, al-Qaeda and Taliban deaths, but the combined total for both countries would be in the hundreds of thousands.