There's no question that the September 11th attack was the most significant and shocking event to have occurred in my lifetime.
I was too young to remember the collapse of communism in eastern Europe - and the associated national rebirths - while Princess Diana's death and the public reaction - although memorable - just seemed "weird". The first decade of the 21st century has been one disaster after another - both natural and man made. The optimism of January 1st 2000 was firmly wiped out by those murderous assaults on New York and Washington DC. It wasn't just an attack on the world's only superpower, but on Western civilisation and its ideals of tolerance and liberty.
This sort of thing wasn't supposed to happen. This was the future. We were supposed to be safe and clean and happy.
I was in the school library when the attacks occurred. The few of us there at the time were told by the librarian returning from the staff room that "something terrible has happened in America". Being a nauseating student "leftie", I'd believed that the US could afford to be taken down a few pegs. Not like this though. Nothing prepared any of us for the horrific images that have now become grim and era-defining icons. I can't imagine what it would've been like for those actually caught up in the attacks. This was quite clearly - as many newspaper headlines on September 12th screamed - a "declaration of war".
Most of the discussion in the following days queried how the US -and the UK as an ally - would respond to the attacks. Of course, by then it was clear that this was an Islamist terrorist attack, that the US was now at war against "terrorism" and that those who did it were "going to here from all of us soon". How do you fight a war against a concept?
It's hard to temper emotions when you see ordinary men, women and children, going about their daily business, crushed under tonnes of twisted steel and concrete, having no recourse but to jump thousands of feet to their deaths, or lying dead in aircraft wreckage in rural Pennsylvania. You can understand the anger. You can understand, and perhaps even want to participate in, retribution.
Our leaders and our governments are supposed to be above those base instincts.
First was Afghanistan. The "graveyard of empires". Taken in weeks, bogged down by insurgency for years. Bali was next on Al-Qaeda's hit list. While in the meantime, Afghanistan is one assassination or policy foul up away from becoming another unstable central Asian state, with a big welcome mat laid out for the Taliban.
Then came Iraq, with the sexed up dossiers, the misplaced triumphalism of "mission accomplished", shock and awe and sectarian violence - that some estimates suggest killed several hundred thousand people. Once again it was taken in weeks, then bogged down in insurgency for years. Saddam Hussein was even brought to justice. London's transport system was next on Al-Qaeda's hit list. The UK, as the ever loyal companion to the United States, suffered a serious dent in its reputation in Europe and the Middle East.
There's the war at home too. Successful counter-terrorist operations by security agencies and the police have to be acknowledged. This is where the war on terror actually means something. Unlike other wars in the past, where the public are expected to hunker down and join the effort through physical sacrifice, we've allows our rights and liberties to be put on the table. We all want to feel safer and more secure, but giving up those things that make modern secular western society what it is (excuse the cliché) just hands victory to those who want to see it destroyed.
We need to honour all those who've made the ultimate sacrifice. The victims of terrorism home and abroad. The thousands killed on Iraqi streets by suicide bombers. The people killed by military "accidents". Those thousands of military personnel who - prior to 9/11 - probably couldn't even find Afghanistan on a map let alone care about playing cat and mouse with Taliban fighters in Helmand Province.
My generation now knows what it's like to fight a war against a concept.
It means missing limbs, missing senses, terrifying dreams and flashbacks, tears on the streets and in homes and colleagues being brought off a plane in a box draped in a union flag.
Just like any other war, any other act of terrorism, except without victory conditions and without a foreseeable end.
I was too young to remember the collapse of communism in eastern Europe - and the associated national rebirths - while Princess Diana's death and the public reaction - although memorable - just seemed "weird". The first decade of the 21st century has been one disaster after another - both natural and man made. The optimism of January 1st 2000 was firmly wiped out by those murderous assaults on New York and Washington DC. It wasn't just an attack on the world's only superpower, but on Western civilisation and its ideals of tolerance and liberty.
This sort of thing wasn't supposed to happen. This was the future. We were supposed to be safe and clean and happy.
I was in the school library when the attacks occurred. The few of us there at the time were told by the librarian returning from the staff room that "something terrible has happened in America". Being a nauseating student "leftie", I'd believed that the US could afford to be taken down a few pegs. Not like this though. Nothing prepared any of us for the horrific images that have now become grim and era-defining icons. I can't imagine what it would've been like for those actually caught up in the attacks. This was quite clearly - as many newspaper headlines on September 12th screamed - a "declaration of war".
Most of the discussion in the following days queried how the US -and the UK as an ally - would respond to the attacks. Of course, by then it was clear that this was an Islamist terrorist attack, that the US was now at war against "terrorism" and that those who did it were "going to here from all of us soon". How do you fight a war against a concept?
It's hard to temper emotions when you see ordinary men, women and children, going about their daily business, crushed under tonnes of twisted steel and concrete, having no recourse but to jump thousands of feet to their deaths, or lying dead in aircraft wreckage in rural Pennsylvania. You can understand the anger. You can understand, and perhaps even want to participate in, retribution.
Our leaders and our governments are supposed to be above those base instincts.
First was Afghanistan. The "graveyard of empires". Taken in weeks, bogged down by insurgency for years. Bali was next on Al-Qaeda's hit list. While in the meantime, Afghanistan is one assassination or policy foul up away from becoming another unstable central Asian state, with a big welcome mat laid out for the Taliban.
Then came Iraq, with the sexed up dossiers, the misplaced triumphalism of "mission accomplished", shock and awe and sectarian violence - that some estimates suggest killed several hundred thousand people. Once again it was taken in weeks, then bogged down in insurgency for years. Saddam Hussein was even brought to justice. London's transport system was next on Al-Qaeda's hit list. The UK, as the ever loyal companion to the United States, suffered a serious dent in its reputation in Europe and the Middle East.
There's the war at home too. Successful counter-terrorist operations by security agencies and the police have to be acknowledged. This is where the war on terror actually means something. Unlike other wars in the past, where the public are expected to hunker down and join the effort through physical sacrifice, we've allows our rights and liberties to be put on the table. We all want to feel safer and more secure, but giving up those things that make modern secular western society what it is (excuse the cliché) just hands victory to those who want to see it destroyed.
We need to honour all those who've made the ultimate sacrifice. The victims of terrorism home and abroad. The thousands killed on Iraqi streets by suicide bombers. The people killed by military "accidents". Those thousands of military personnel who - prior to 9/11 - probably couldn't even find Afghanistan on a map let alone care about playing cat and mouse with Taliban fighters in Helmand Province.
My generation now knows what it's like to fight a war against a concept.
It means missing limbs, missing senses, terrifying dreams and flashbacks, tears on the streets and in homes and colleagues being brought off a plane in a box draped in a union flag.
Just like any other war, any other act of terrorism, except without victory conditions and without a foreseeable end.
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