Eight years ago today, I was working glass using the two thousand degree-plus heat of a glory hole, listening in disbelief as I worked at how the news on the radio was completely transforming our world. I ran inside, turned on the nearest television, and saw the south tower crumble.

The fires that contributed to the buckling and collapse of both towers burned hotter than the ones I used to craft small vases that day. The fires ignited within us all sent troops to Afghanistan...

...troops that are still there, after all these years.

MY CHILD is in Afghanistan right now. Thanks to the previous administration's amoral and illegal actions, not only do I have to worry about him being killed in battle, I have to worry about how he'd be treated were he to fall into enemy hands.

Which, to be honest, I've always had to worry about, but in the past, my govt. operated from a higher moral ground and hadn't given the fucking green light to torture as acceptable. No reason for the Taliban to be restrained in how they would treat him - all they have to do is point to one of the MANY locations and instances where the US said, oh this is ok. It's not like we gave them the winning hand in the propaganda battle by dropping to their level or anything.

And it just ... I'm as disheartened as anyone that Obama seems set on escalating, rather than ending, the war in Afghanistan. I'm as disheartened as anyone that for many of us the world doesn't seem significantly different than it did a year ago. But you know and I know that we can sit here and be disheartened or we can do something about it.

Put something in the tip jar and label it for the First Draft care package. Make your suggestions or contribute to the package in other ways here.

Let's also work a little harder to bring 'em all home.

Update, 11:43 AM: Adrastos on 9-11:

The misuse of 9/11 by the Bush-Cheney administration compounded the tragedy and has, sadly, dimished the impact of that awful morning 8 years ago. We've become numbed to the video and made cynical by the way 9/11 was used by the GOP. Joe Biden summed it up neatly in 2008 by describing every sentence coming out of Rudy Giuliani's mouth as consisting of: "A noun, a verb and 9/11."

The people who were murdered that day deserved better.

Anudder update, 11:52 AM: Athenae outlines how unified we really were immediately following the attacks in NYC and DC and the crash in PA. We all should have behaved better.