5 Years Since September 11th

It does not seem like 5 years have gone by.

I remember waking up that morning in our apartments in Washington Heights. I was washing the dishes and there were all these sirens. I looked out the window and saw police cars, firefighters and ambulances going down the Henry Hudson Parkway. I was thinking that there must be some big fire somewhere and that we would hear about it later in the day. Then I got a phone call from my father in Montreal. A plane crashed into the Twin Towers he told us. Strange. That Friday we were suppose to see the Cirque du Soleil performing a free show in the Twin Tower Plaza. I guess that was going to be cancelled. We flipped on the TV. Both towers were hit. I knew that something terrible was taking place. My first thought was terrorism. They tried before, with a car bomb in the World Trade Center basement and my wife, being in law, knew about the court case. The defendants were crazy, they even attacked the bailiff. Crazy religious zealots. We sat there in front of the TV, wondering what was going to happen next. Then the towers fell. I just couldn't believe it. Gone in a moment. The rest of the day I felt like a zombie. We headed out to the Columbia Presbyterian Hospital (where I was a Grad Student) to see if we could donate blood or help in any way. They were turning people away. We just all sat around on the steps of the Hammer building at 168th and Fort Washington trying to figure out what took place. Over that summer, my wife interned in the building across the street from the Towers (a Federal Building) and we knew people who commuted there. Everyone was fine, but the building was being used as a makeshift morgue and was thus closed. One fellow coworker of hers had stepped out of the subway minutes after the first plane hit. The first thing he saw was a big cylindrical metal object in the street, a police officer told them that it was part of a jet engine and that they all must move uptown. He then walked north. Crazy. The one miracle is that so few people died - it could have been worse. Much worse.

In the attack, two Palazzos died. My last name is not that common and I've often wondered if we were related. One was a fireman, the other a bond trader at Cantor Fizgerald. The whole thing is so sad.

In the years since I don't think we've made much progress. "They" bomb us, we bomb "them". Why is our bombing of civilians in the name of a "higher good" any better than their apocalyptic world view? In the eye's of our leaders its another quick fix, but this time its not education or health care, but international terrorism. Why can't people learn that there are no quick fixes? To fight terrorism, we need moderates in the Middle East. But with US foreign policy, is that possible?

In the end the moderates have to win. Prosperity, peace and progress are always a byproduct of societies where the moderates have the power. Always. That should be our aim. Build a world that gives strength and power to the moderates, here and in the Middle East and everywhere else. The problem is, I'm not convinced that this is the current game plan, here or over there.