Did you see the frightened ones?
Did you hear the falling bombs?
Did you ever wonder why we had to run for shelter when the promise of a brave new world unfurled beneath the clear blue sky?
Did you see the frightened ones?
Did you her the falling bombs?
The flames are all long gone, but the pain lingers on...
Goodbye, blue sky
Goodbye, blue sky
Goodbye...
This song was written by Pink Floyd and it was about World War II and the bombing of London. However, after I heard it the first time I realized that this song speaks about 9/11 in a way that any country song written about why we need the Iraq War ever could...and the thing that strikes me about it is that it was never really meant to speak about 9/11. Not only was the "blue sky" in the song a reference to the smoke that lingered in the sky on the fateful night of the bombing, but it also spoke to the loss of innocence of the people, especially the children, who witnessed it...and the nation that suffered through it.
I remember being 13 and looking up at the sky on that day. We live near the 3 major airports in the area: Newark, JFK, and LaGuardia, and so planes pass over us all the time. To look up and see no planes in the sky whatsoever was frightening. It wasn't right. It was just so ... creepy. Even a five year old child who liked to look up and see the planes would've known something was off.
The absence of the planes was the first thing that really tipped me off to the magnitude of the events that occurred on September 11th, but in the coming days I saw such a change in people: first for the positive, and then for the negative. First we all united, but then we divided in a way that I have never seen before.
That entire year I made it a priority of mine (even at age 13-14) to inform myself deeply so I could really form my own opinion about all of it. Some of what was happening frightened me, but looking back on it...it was justified.
We needed the war in Afghanistan. People don't like to hear that. They don't like to acknowledge it, because the truth is: a lot of people nowadays are anti-war to a fault. We needed it then and we still need it now. Even if you don't think that another 9/11 is in the cards...someday it could happen again. If it doesn't matter to you to protect yourself, think of the children you're going to have. And for the aging hippies...think of YOUR children and the grandchildren you hope to have....or maybe already have.
A lot of people don't like to hear that war is a necessary evil, but unfortunately it is. We like to say "give peace a chance", but there are just too many people who would not be willing to join us in that and would take it as a sign of weakness. Sure, the Iraq War may not have been necessary, but the Afghanistan War was and still is.
The only thing I have ever given President Bush credit for, and to this day will still give him credit for, is his handling of matters both domestic and foreign after September 11th. He took charge, led the people, went to Ground Zero, and did remarkably well for someone who held that much power in a situation that was so out of his control. There were thousands of people dead on his watch committed not by a country, but by an evasive enemy who killed because of religion. He handled it the best he knew how. Even though you may hate him...in the future I believe we will all realize that he did what any of us would have done, and history will celebrate and thank him for that.
Eight years later, the Taliban and Al Qaeda are reorganizing. Is this good for Afghanistan, and is this good for us? You answer that question. If we leave them alone, and "let them be their own sovereign nation", do you think that in the end...we can expect anything different than what we received on that sunny September morning eight years ago?
Peace would be a nice thing to have, and it would be nice if we did not have to go to these extreme measures to make sure that we are safe. However, unfortunately, our enemies do not deal in this way....and maybe we have to fight defensively with an enemy who knows nothing but violence.
In conclusion....it's said that war never solves anything. War is what got us where we are today...we are a nation because we fought a war to gain our independence. We are one nation and not a nation and a confederacy because the Union Army fought to preserve this great Union. Europe was saved from the jaws of Fascism and Nazism because the Allied Powers fought to save it. And to be honest...the American people were saved from the Great Depression because we entered World War II. Can we really "talk" with terrorists? Can we "negotiate" with Usama binLadin? Could we have "talked" with Hitler, Mussolini, and Tojo? The British didn't really want to hear anything, did they? War may not be the best answer, but it certainly is an answer.
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read more blogs!
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cbond35
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Sep 11 @ 2:10PM
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Love is the answer..............
-John Lennon
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DRACULA_VwV
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Sep 11 @ 2:17PM
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All we are saying, Is give war a chance.
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LipGlossQueen9
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Sep 11 @ 2:23PM
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I really hope I'm not coming off as barbaric here - I'm trying to be practical and realistic.
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DRACULA_VwV
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Sep 11 @ 2:28PM
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What's on the horizon, Is far more horrific than ten thousand 911's
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Jacksonboy
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Sep 11 @ 2:39PM
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Well written, would it not be great to live in a world with no war? Man I wish it were possible but as long as humans are here there will be wars. 
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DRACULA_VwV
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Sep 11 @ 2:42PM
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Wars 
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DRACULA_VwV
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Sep 11 @ 2:47PM
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Raise the Battle Flag, Peace is a drag, Let's kill each other and brag, We're in peace right now, It's too god damned quiet, Let's start another war or a global riot,
Raise the Battle Flag, Let's kill some more, This god damned peace is a motherfvcken bore.
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LipGlossQueen9
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Sep 11 @ 2:52PM
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I want you all to know that ^^^ that message is not the message I am trying to convey here....
I'm not deleting his comments because I think he has every right to say what he has to say but his opinions do not represent mine.
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DRACULA_VwV
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Sep 11 @ 2:56PM
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We're not at war now, We beat Afghanistan & Iraq, It's time to raise the Battle Flag against Iran and Attack!
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ttomtarr
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Sep 11 @ 3:17PM
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Talk of war by those who have not been to war, is much like talk about the moon. by those who have not been to the moon.
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DRACULA_VwV
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Sep 11 @ 3:19PM
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Thank you lipgloss, It's my views. Not reflecting your views at all. All commenters reflect themselves, not the views of the blogger at all.
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legacy1
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Sep 11 @ 3:39PM
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Great song and blog...thanks for posting!
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john49887
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Sep 11 @ 3:41PM
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As long as war is regarded as wicked, it will always have its fascination. When it is looked upon as vulgar, it will cease to be popular.
Oscar Wilde
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observed50
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Sep 11 @ 4:03PM
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LG> As a conscientious objector during Vietnam, and a peace activist since I was 15, having contributed to national direct action strategy development during Reagan's dynasty, let me offer a vision of 'peace' slightly different than what you're describing here.
For the vast majority of peace/justice activists, organizations, and religious bodies, people who've been doing it awhile and aren't 'newbies' in it for the thrill and fun of demonstrations...'peace' is not simply the absence of war. If one pursues simply the absence of war, one is stuck contributing to the vast inequities that fuel wars. Violence isn't always oppressors in motion...sometimes it is those who are beneath the boot finally throwing off the boot.
There was a popular button during Reagan's years..."If you want peace, work for justice." It has Biblical roots and Western Philosophy roots...
Spinoza..."Peace is not the absence of war; it is a virtue; a state of mind; a disposition for benevolence; confidence; and justice."
Martin Luther King, Jr - "True peace is not merely the absence of tension: it is the presence of justice."
Andre Gide -“It is easier to lead men to combat, stirring up their passion, than to restrain them and direct them toward the patient labour of peace.”
Pres. Dwight David Eisenhower - “Peace and justice are two sides of the same coin.”
Note how you start your story with 9/11. But 9/11 doesn't start on 9/11. It starts with a Cold War. It starts with arming, financing and training the Muhajideen through US, China, and other operatives. It starts before that...with a global search for cheap labor, cheap resources, cheap governments.
Conflict isn't born out of 'those people don't like us.' Conflict is born out of a struggle over limited resources, national elite psychologies, and the difficulty the species has of stopping a routine/pattern of violence once entered.
We're propping up a corrupt puppet in Afghanistan who has never had the support of many of his people. He was imposed on the nation by sucking up to the US, and making himself out to be someone he wasn't...other than a helpful puppet if he was paid enough. Did the war bring justice to the Afghan people? Not close. But we turned and ran over to Iraq to chase an chimera.
Listen to so many voices in these blogs. Justice is the last thing on their mind EXCEPT if it is 'just' to them...a fundamental misunderstanding of justice. Justice requires respect of others. Most international relationships are not built on respect...they're built on greed, lust for power, exploitation...built on a deeply mistaken notion of 'America first.'
One planet, one species. We love to think we can do it alone. We love to think we can make ourselves and island. We love to think we can beat the chit out of everyone we dislike, and phew...then we'll have peace!
At the same time, we love to sit in pews and pass the peace to one another, and nod out heads at 'we are our brother's keeper.' In truth, we do all we can to avoid that, if it means real work, real effort in which I have to wrap my head around a world that is different than what I expect.
The Right loves to reduce peace-work to their bleeding heart stereotypes in which they wave the dead monkey around, ranting about "peace at any price! They threaten our nation." But that is the role of ideologues protecting the status quo...getting others to fear change.
As Gide notes above...conflict and violence are the easiest paths. Try to restrain apoplexy. But real peace work, which is the work of building just communities and just nations is very difficult...because people like inequality when it benefits them, internal to a nation or external.
Let me offer a quote from Petra Kelly, founder of the German Green Party....
"A truly free society must not include a "peace" which oppresses us. We must learn on our own terms what peace and freedom mean together. There can be no peace if there is social injustice and suppression of human rights, because external and internal peace are inseparable. Peace, is not just the absence of mass destruction, but a positive internal and external condition in which people are free so that they can grow to their full potential."
-- Petra Karin Kelly (1947-1992)
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edthepoet
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Sep 11 @ 8:21PM
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War is never good, innocent people die or terminated forever.
War is mans way of making money, land and power.
War only become necessary when attacked,
In a sad way, it has been a way to slow down the world population.
If saw my father pictures of when he was fight in the WW2 with thousand of dead bodies around him, his best friend with limbs missing, heads decapitated, and his blood soak uniform. Then you truly see the ugly results of war.
Somehow, we only think about how our soldiers and fatherless family as result of war.
We have taken life now to a new low, we now called the innocent victims of war, collateral damage.
Check the history book and read how many culture slaughtered innocent children,women, along with raping them before killing them.
No song can ever bring back these people or make their family whole.
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chubs
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Sep 11 @ 10:45PM
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there is war, and there is rumor of war...
in your own words we were attacked by an evasive enemy and not any one country, so why did we decide to invade not one, but two, countries...if they really wanted to do it, bush & co. could have went after osama quietly and deadly, but the war criminals in the white house wanted war for oil's sake...the money we spend on war would be better spent being put into our economy...jmo.
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dizzydoll
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Sep 12 @ 1:46AM
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what i found most cool about NYC is the people are so warm and kind. and practically every shop there plays music from yesteryear.... bringing peace and the flower children back into circulation...... my generations music, its way too cool to ever be forgotten. 
and when i asked the taxi driver why American people warned me to get out of NYC as fast as possible after touch down. He said that since 9/11 people are a lot kinder, caring and way warmer than they used to be. He said NYC used to be a dangerous place where people didnt make eye contact.... he has taxied for 20 years in NY and he should know. Isnt it sad that a tragedy has to bring out the best in us? 
I stayed in NYC for 3 days before i had to move on
i love NY and will never forget it........... 
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kjac
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Oct 5 @ 12:49AM
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From it's beginning, our country has been founded on war. Luckily, the wars we weren't strong enough to win didn't wipe us out. Other countries haven't been so lucky.
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Roverboy
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Nov 8 @ 1:03PM
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LGQ - I couldn't have said it better myself!
Major Kudos to you.
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