September 11th was never put into context. The USA treated it as if it were the first act of such violence on Earth.
Twenty years ago a dog by the name of Zanjeer died. On March 25, 2013 a grateful nation remembered him.
March 25, 2013
Stephanie Henkel, Global Animal
Twenty years ago, (click here) a series of twelve bombs detonated throughout the city of Mumbai leaving 257 dead and 713 injured.
According to Reuters, thousands of lives were saved thanks to a brave golden labrador named Zanjeer. The heroic canine detected more than 3,329 kgs of explosive RDX, 600 detonators, 249 hand grenades, and 6,406 rounds of live ammunition. Zanjeer, a treasured member of the Mumbai Police Bomb Detection and Disposal Squad, also helped avert other potential explosions by detecting three more bombs in the days following the initial blasts....
These are not the most recent Mumbai attacks, this happened in 1993. Just because Western politicians were not open and honest about what the world is really like to 'keep it simple' for election purposes; doesn't mean they are doing the right thing when 'the truth' is finally revealed.
My education to the real reality began when I started reading The International Herald Tribune on a daily basis. The IHT featured a 'peoples' and their culture everyday. It addressed their circumstances and their lives. It made real to me the cloistered lives Americans lead from day to day.
The Spindletop oilfield, (click here) discovered on a salt dome formation south of Beaumont in eastern Jefferson County on January 10, 1901, marked the birth of the modern petroleum industry....
Black Gold and when the wells ran dry on land, they went to the sea and when the wells were expensive offshore they took geologists and traveled the globe. USA foreign policy and interests empowered dictators to rule countries where American companies drilled for oil that would be used by The West. They caused and continue to cause hardship.
Osama bin Laden caught up with it and made plans to destroy the West and all it valued. That same 'interest' in American expansionism still exists. People have risen up in the Middle East and there is no going back now, although those without ideas think they should and could. The worst possible reality Americans could have is to think they are immune from the anger their government has propagated in their interest simply because we are one decade out from that tragedy on September of 2001.
The USA has to begin the process of dismantling the fear of this nation across the globe if Americans are to have meaningful lives with any degree of safety. As the Middle East recovers from it's oppression, the worst that can happen is for Americans to believe they have to impose it all over again. It is that paradigm of willful domination at the end of a missile that China and Russia stands against. I suggest we take it seriously and find in roads to peace and non-proliferation at every turn.
