The most terrifying part about the destruction of the World Trade Center is that the people in that building were just bumbling through their work day. Banging on the copy machine, gathering around the coffee pot and griping about how the budget analysis is due. Maybe they heard the jet and thought it was odd, but the people caught in the explosion may have died without ever knowing anything was up. We can all imagine ourselves in their place, and the fact that there was nothing at all they could have done to stop the tragedy is frightening. The terrorists could have chosen any of our workplaces.

We're all afraid of crashing when we fly. We can't blame the passengers of those four planes for allowing this to happen, because they had probably been told that if they cooperated, they would be set free. Hijackers have always wanted to be taken somewhere, or to make demands. Noone had turned a jet into a weapon before.

The firefighters and policemen all knew that they risked their lives in their jobs. That fact does not ease the pain of their loss.

No citizen should pay the price for their government's actions. The Holocaust taught us that a nation of good people can, if given a problem and a scapegoat for the problem, allow terrible things to happen. Then there was the internment of Japanese Americans in WWII. This is what I fear now- and I certainly see it happening in the voices of my fellow Americans. If we allow ourselves to be distracted by the immediate cause of this attack, we will never cast an investigative eye towards its radical cause.

For those of you abhorred by the celebration of human death you see in video of Palestinian streets, wait until bin Laden is dead and see how we behave.

As I watched the events unfold, I was shown by the big three networks the same images over and over, images you have all seen. They were all very iconic- plane crashes into building, plane crashes into other building, buildings collapse, and then some street views of the dusty darkness. The sound was usually off, so you didn't hear the screams of agony, the wailing, the terror in people's voices. Then, we switched to the spanish-language channels, and all of the video was different- most of it was of the pandemonium on the street, and then they showed the rain of people.

As the buildings burned, many people were trapped, and they began to hang out of windows in order to breathe. Then, whether they slipped, jumped, or were forced out by the heat, they began to fall off. Ninety-some floors. By the dozens. That moment, when I saw people rather than property being destroyed, is when it all slammed home. I watched the major networks for nine hours straight, and saw only one falling person, and one body. I wonder why they chose to sheild us from the full effect of the terror. It's not like they could portray this as any less horrifying.

I get angrier the more I watch the news. They keep saying that this was an attack against freedom, or democracy. Bin Laden has accused the U.S. of being permissive, yet there are many countries much more permissive than us. Why were we chosen? Was it that we have an extensive media? I doubt it. Look at the targets. They took out the symbol of American military power, and the symbol of American economic power. Neither had anything to do with American hedonism. A very distinct message. Why were those targets chosen? You know my opinion. I ask only that you consider the question for yourself, rather than viewing this as a black and white good versus evil problem.

The world is as grey as the streets of NYC. If we close our eyes, it will only get darker.