Five years ago today, I was one week into a new job in a centre tangentially related to emergency response. The television was kept on, in case one of the emergencies we dealt with was on the news. So when a plane flew into the World Trade Center in New York City, we were all there, glued to the screen.

Five years ago today, we watched the second plane fly in. We saw the towers fall in real time, saw people running panicked in the streets, heard rumours of downtown Toronto office buildings being evacuated. Normally our phones rang off the hook, but that day they were silent. When one did ring, and we answered it, the voice on the other end would say, “Did you see? Do you know? What’s happening?”

Five years ago today, when the second plane flew in, when the second tower fell, I thought, the United States is going to war. They’ve never been attacked on their own soil and not gone to war.?‚?

In the five years since, I got pregnant and then became a mother. I willingly brought a child into a world that holds miracles and joy and opportunity for some, and unimaginable brutality for others. Does this make sense? I still don’t know. As I planned the pregnancy, and then the birth, and then watched my daughter grow, 8,587 Afghan troops, 3,485 Afghan civillians, approximately 42,000 Iraqi civillians (some estimates put this number as high as 200,000), 3,000 American soldiers, and 450 coalition soldiers have also been killed, for a total of over 57,000 people, not including the wounded. That is the equivalent of a WTC attack every three months for five years.

My daughter has lived her entire life in a world at war.

Last week, I caught part of a funeral for a Canadian soldier killed in Afghanistan, in a mission that is looking less like peacekeeping and more like war by the day. This soldier left behind a wife and two sons, one 13 and one 11. When the younger son approached the hearse to put a flower on his father’s casket, his face cracked and he cried, and I sobbed. For him, a young boy who will have to grow up without a father; for his family, for his father; for the?‚? three thousand?‚? people who died in the original attacks, and for the fifty-seven thousand who have died since then, as much the victims of the terrorists as anyone who stood in the WTC that day five years ago and had to decide whether to jump or burn. And for their families, their children, their spouses, their partners, their parents, their siblings, their friends, their cousins. For the wounded and disabled, and for those whose bodies are whole but whose minds have been broken.

Today is not Remembrance Day; but I will take time anyway to think silently of those who have already been lost and those we have yet to lose, on all sides. Today I will ignore the political browbeating of both sides, and think simply of the human toll, the sheer loss. For one day, for this anniversary, I will not think about whether the war is right or wrong, the response justified or not, the objectives met or failed; for one day, I will grieve.

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Apparently, the U.S. withholding monetary aid from the newly elected terrorist organization, Hamas, who has recently been elected by the Palestinian peoplen to run their government, is proving to bite the Palestinian people in the butt. Teachers have not been paid salaries for six months. What do you expect when the people’s voices represent the desire for death, destruction and violent hatred towards Jews and Christians. This tends to cause slight hostility in the world.

The strike is supposedly an act of pressure to unite the government and make Hamas concede to the fact that Israel can and does exist. So, the strike itself is a hopeful sign that some of the people want a more united government and one that doesn’t preach contempt and violence.

Personally, I don’t think Hamas gives a crap if the children are in school or not. They probably welcome ignorance and they certainly don’t care about children. As people willing to kill their own children in order to kill a few Jews or Christians, these aren’t exactly the kind of people that value the traditional wants and desires of humanity (peace and happiness). An uneducated population would only serve their purposes to brainwash and suppress the people even further. A hungry country becomes even more desperate, but what are we to do? We have given them a ton of aid in the past and it only benefited a few in dictatorial positions, to buy mansions and live the life of luxury. The people aren’t told that we have given them aid. There is no freedom of speech or freely flowing and accurate news. All the people know is their terrorist sponsored propaganda.

I guess you get the government you deserve…

Children Bear Brunt of Palestinian Standoff
Written by The Media Line Staff
Published Sunday, September 03, 2006

Most Palestinian children did not start the school year on Saturday as Palestinian teachers and government employees announced their largest strike since Hamas came to power in January.
 
Teachers and civil servants are striking because many have not received salaries in six months.
 
The strike is said to be spearheaded by supporters of Fatah in order to pressure Hamas into accepting a unity government and resolving the current political and financial crisis.
 
Hamas, designated a terrorist organization by Israel and the United States, came to power in the January legislative elections.
 
Most international aid money to the Palestinian Authority (P.A.) was subsequently frozen. But Hamas has refused to fall into line with international demands, which include renouncing terrorism, recognizing Israel and acknowledging previously signed agreements with Israel.
 
P.A. Chairman Mahmoud ‘Abbas, who is also a senior Fatah member, hopes a unity government will force Hamas into recognizing Israel and help ease the embargo on the P.A.
 
The P.A. employs 165,000 workers, most of whom have not received proper salaries in six months.
 
The strike was a success as most teachers did not come to work in both the West Bank and in Gaza, Fatah officials said. Read the rest…

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