I believe that part of my unwillingness (or sheer laziness) to post this past month has been due to the ten-year anniversary of 9-11, which was remembered - "celebrated" is hardly the word to use - globally on that date earlier this month. I remember how the whole global spectrum changed completely - and irrevocably - for the worse that day and how the sense of foreboding that the event left with me did not even come close to the horrors that were justified by it later on.
Also, due to my not paying attention when I booked my return flight to Switzerland - after all, many, if not most, dates outside the US are written typically as "day-month-year," instead of the North American "month-day-year" - it failed to register with me that 11-09 was, in fact, 9-11. I realize that sounds lame. But I was paying more attention to re-scheduling my previous return date to the US from 10 September to 10 August in order to have some time in the US with family before beginning my new job. What was most important to me for the return to Switzerland was to get the best deal, i.e., to use my air mileage rather than my woefully depreciated USD. The 11-09 date was the latest possible departure day that would allow me to use air mileage, arrive here and still have a couple days to recover from the jet lag before beginning my first course. Jet lag considerations become ever more important as one ages. I was also more concerned that I would have to leave from Dulles Airport, rather than BWI, which I consider far more user-friendly. Certainly, BWI is much closer to our home in MD. Thus, it only much later dawned on me that 9-11 would be a travel day for me.
I was not superstitious, as some appear to have been, about the date, but would not have chosen to travel then, had I realized in time. It would have been more out of respect for those innocents who died then and who have suffered since than for any other reason. Still, it was interesting to see that my transatlantic flight was absolutely chock full. Either the other passengers were like me and honestly hadn't realized or needs must, I suppose. Still, life must go on.
On The Day ten years ago, I was with my then-Team in Geneva, frantically putting the finishing touches on the final version of that Team's final Panel report, awarding compensation to certain victims of Iraq's illegal invasion and occupation of Kuwait in 1990. Irony indeed! We were all in the UN complex at the time, which is not where our offices were generally located, and had chosen to forego a late lunch in order to complete our work while the Panel took a break.
We were so engrossed that when the normally jovial Panel Chairman returned slightly in advance of his colleagues and asked whether we had seen anything about the "kamikazes" (his term) hitting New York City (it was nearly 15:00 Geneva time by then), we at first believed that it was the prelude to a joke and waited for a punch line. When no punch line came and we realized that he was talking about a horrible current event, we all flew to the one computer in the room that had an Internet connection. Of course, every news site was jammed. We remembered, however, that there was a television in our Executive Secretary's office and decided to ask permission to watch and see what was happening. This was generally before the days of cell phones that could transmit pictures and videos instantaneously. So, up we raced to the office and knocked on the door - ordinarily we wouldn't have dreamed of doing such a thing without having been summoned. The door was opened by a colleague, who put his finger to his lips, and ushered us in silently. The office was literally packed. Some major players on the international scene were present, including an official Iraqi delegation from Saddam Hussein's government - present to attend a major hearing for another Panel.
We all watched in horror as the attacks on the Towers were played and replayed. There was not a dry eye in the room - no matter what country an individual was from. Tears were openly streaming down peoples' faces, including those from the Iraqi delegation, and others of us were sobbing out loud as we watched the literally unimaginable happening before our eyes. Our Executive Secretary had his head in his arms on his desk.
The truly wonderful thing that happened then is that every single person in that room was united in compassion for those whose world had literally come unglued and for their families whose lives would never be the same. Every single person was an "American" for those moments. Even then, I realized how special those moments were - that every one present, regardless of nationality or religious or political beliefs - repudiated those horrific actions in the strongest terms possible. It was a privilege to be there, to participate in and to witness them firsthand.
Later events would deliberately squander that unity irreparably to wreak havoc and devastation on a scale and to a horrific extent almost unimagined for my country - especially as the preponderance of subsequent victims were entirely innocent.
While I will never forgive those who teleguided the suicide bombers or the bombers themselves, I will also never - ever - forgive those who seized the opportunity to undo human and civil rights protections for us all and to unleash forces on innocents in order to advance their own, equally evil, agendas. They ignored the warnings and did not protect us.
But now it is the entire world that is paying the price.
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