When the towers were falling...

When the towers were falling, I found it bizarre and funny, gained a vindictive, childish pleasure. The atrocities US commited in Korea, Vietnam, Japan in 1945, its hegemony around the world, its support for dictatorships and Israel in Middle East were often commented upon.  I was in Grade 9th, sitting in my living room like many others in Pakistan before the advent of private news channels, not knowing how close a link our country has with the fall. 

The next day we heard the stories that the Jews were absent from the WTC and how Bush himself orchestrated 9/11 to be used as an excuse for attacking Afghanistan. For many years I bought the theory, fake documentaries and concocted evidence which followed. Only after the Taliban formed a Pakistani wing and started attacking civilians here, did I realize it isn't Muslims vs Non-Muslims. It is tolerance vs intolerance, sanity vs dogma. I am not very fond of America's self-serving policies that become barbaric when required. 

Could never have anticipated how insecure and deadly this world will become. How many innocent civilians will become "collateral damage", victims of extremism. I will tell my children about it, like my dad told me of partition, but emphasize that they should prevent such a blunder from happening again. 

Realized years later what a costly blunder this was, RIP the victims of New York and everywhere else in the world. President Obama should also visit those in Afghanistan and Iraq, just like he met the September 11 victims today.