A Day of Mourning

"It's not the spark that caused the fire
It was the air you breathed that fanned the flame
What you think you'll solve with violence
Will only spread like a disease
Until it all comes 'round again...
Was John the only dreamer?"
Today at 8:46am, our company will company will hold a moment of silence in memory of the 9/11 attacks. I will pray and mourn for the 3,000 lost on that day as will for their families.

I will mourn also for this country that I love. I will mourn for the past 50 years of US foreign policy through which it has been a willing participant in an endless cycle of violence - a cycle had it not been spun, might very well have kept 19 hijackers from the New York shores that fateful morning.

I will mourn for our "addiction to oil," which has lead to US sponsored assassination of democratically elected Iranian leader Mohammad Mossadegh, and the installation of the brutal dictator Mohammad Reza Shah.

I will mourn for those within our government who once dubbed Osama bin Laden a "compassionate young man" while training he and his minions under the CIA's watch as "Afghan Freedom Fighters," to be cold and merciless killers.

I will mourn the decision of President Clinton to free a known but unnamed Kohbar tower bomber and Al-Qaeda informant, due to his ties to the Saudi Kingdom (and thus our oil supplies).

I will mourn the decision of President Bush to kill FBI investigations on the bin Laden family, both before and after the 9/11 attacks. I will also mourn his lack of action on repeated warnings from counter-terrorism czar Richard Clarke to "roll back" Al-Qaeda, until only days before September the 11th.

Lastly, I mourn the 3,000 plus lives that are lost every month in Iraq, due to our needless invasion and our unlearned lesson that violence begets violence.

I mourn all these things today which lead to the needless and catestrophic loss of life on our home shores, and for what I fear will only lead to more violence at home and abroad.

Our Father in heaven, forgive us for certainly do not know what on earth we are doing.

Other reflections on this day: Josh Brown, Miz Sundry and Cade.