SCROOMtimes - The 'zineiest!

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By Matt Sedik
I guess my feeling on the morning of the 11th of September were similar to those of most Americans: anger. I don't pretend to be an expert in the complex affairs of Middle East foreign policy. What I wanted that morning was the ability to make a phone call to send some planes over there and turn the desert into a giant crater of glass. It is only the enlightened few that can transcend those initial, primal feelings into something better.

After the reports and looping clips of planes hitting buildings started to pour in, a quiet numbness settled. An uneasiness being in my own skin. Like I was a participant in some experiment. That at any moment doors would burst open with men in white labs coats telling me the test was over. But we don't have than option. Instead we get to mourn those whole lost their lives because of the fractured faith of madmen.

Out of this tragedy we've come together. I see American flags everywhere now. I see people helping out with donations of blood, food, money and their time. I see us stopping to educate each other on the idea of Islam. We don't need to turn against our own citizens because of the way they look, dress or pray.

A few hours ago we started bombing the "enemy". It's tough, because their is no one country we can point to. Instead we're targeting groups of men, political and religious organizations. Oppressors. This won't be an easy conflict. Nor will it be a clean one. As soon as that first bomb detonated, we've pretty much guaranteed more terrorist acts upon U.S. soil.

What I still can't wrap my head around is the idea of justice. What if we capture Bin Laden, what then? Does trying the man in a court of law for the death of 5,000+ people even make sense? Does taking his life make any more sense? Probably the best solution I've heard is to give him a sex change, send him back to Afghanistan and make him live as a woman under the Taliban's fist.

In the end, all I really hope is that all of this sacrifice means something. That all the lives that were lost, and all of the military personnel currently in harms way, that it removes the scourge of terrorism. It will be a long, hard road. And our support cannot be fleeting.

I have a seven month old nephew. It is simply amazing to watch him absorb the world around him. I hope that world he finds himself in as an adult, or even better, a youth, is far, far more peaceful than the one right now. Maybe terrorism can be a footnote in a history book. Ok, maybe not a book, maybe a PDF.