I highly recommend Philip Stephens article from the Financial Times.
What we are left with is a world betwixt and between. The sweep of history will record the past decade as a parenthesis – separating a brief period of unparalleled US might from a new, and chaotic, multipolar world. Al-Qaeda had to be defeated. But for all the horror he inflicted on 9/11, Bin Laden did not really change very much at all.
On 9/11/2001, I was a in a winery in Bourgogne, France with a couple of friends returning from our last "innocent" holidays in the South of France. After sampling some delicious "crus" we surfaced into a hot and sunny afternoon to discover that all our phones (yes we had those clunky nokia's) went hell-bend into overdrive as parents and friends were trying to raise us. The drive back North over deserted highways, with jetfighters patrolling over the North-Eastern part of France was a drive to remember: radio commentators were going crazy, politicians were declaring the 3rd world war and nobody had a clue. We saw the first images of the towers in a packed petrol station in Luxembourg and decided to race home to our families.
The shock and awe, the sheer terror of viewing this incredible apacolypse brought tears to all of our eyes. It was the day that the lot of us lost our youth. It was also the day that we woke up to face/fight/form the future.
A couple of days to the first decade after 9/11; I've been thinking of meaningful words and couldn't phrase it better than with the following song from the summercamps in Algonquin
Source: http://www.firesoffriendship.com/SongBook/song3.htm
The Taylor Statten Camps
Evening Grace (Hymn Of Thanks)
Let us give thanks that life is high adventure,
That unscaled heights await us, await us every day.
Let us be glad for work and love and laughter,
For loyal friends and comrades, and comrades on the way.
The evening shadows gather round the sunset,
This day will join our long lost yesterdays,
As builders of a better world we seek,
May we be wise to use each newborn day,
Let us give thanks.
Music by - Murray Adaskin
Words by - Dr. A E. Haydon
