::: GALLERY OF THOUGHTS :::

SEPTEMBER 11, 2002

ONE YEAR LATER
The Gallery of Thoughts was created during the tragic days of the Sept. 11 attack last year. It was a national and personal tragedy for all of us. One year later, we reflect on the past and hope for the future. Our thoughts are with the innocent victims of terror, with those who are no longer with us. Our thoughts are with those whose courage was an inspirational guidance for us.

"Our lives are shaped as much by those who leave us
as they are by those who stay. Loss is our legacy.
Insight is our gift. Memory is our guide."
Hope Edelman, U.S. author
Motherless Daughters:The Legacy of Loss (1994)

The writings and imagery of the Thoughts below remain the same as when they were created after the events of 9/11. The words and links were not changed afterwards. The imagery carries the same pixels.

Enduring Freedom
For many people in America and around the world, the 9.11.01 attack became a terrible tragedy that made us reevaluate our priorities and values. I really took the attack and terrorism personal. 5000 innocent people died in NYC. It was an attack on democracy and freedom that I value the most about the United States.
The Operation Enduring Freedom brought freedom to Afghanistan with TV shows and movie theaters, women's liberation and barber shops forbidden by the Taliban regime. And, America got the USA Patriot Act that gives the government more power to snoop on the ordinary Americans and their Internet communications and online activities. Ironically, enduring freedom abroad went along with a serious threat on domestic freedom.
Terrorism is obviously a threat to our country but I am not sure if a major violation of constitutional rights and civil liberties should be underestimated as a threat to the foundation this country stands on.
"We can't operate on the assumption
that there's a huge fifth column in this
country. You operate on that assumption
and then you can justify a police state."
Harvey Silverglate
Author and Civil-Liberties Lawyer
in a "Boston Phoenix" roundtable on
freedom in the age of terrorism.

60 Days Ago
Note: This mini article was originally written and published on November 12, 2001. Several hours later the American Airlines Flight 587 jet crashed in Far Rockaway, NY. I felt that keeping this article at the time of national tragedy was immoral and pulled it out from this site. It was brought back two weeks later to keep the integrity of almost diary like notes within the Terror and Courage web site.
60 days ago there were no planes in my window. It was a strange view for someone who lives near the airport. It was a beautiful and quiet day. It felt strange to have a really quiet day living near the airport.
60 days ago the "nuke them" shouts sounded hawkish and liberals were liberals. There was no war and an average person would have probably thought that the Northern Alliance is about Scandinavia.
60 days ago there were no bombing overseas and no one looked suspiciously at a strange letter in his mailbox.
60 days ago we were different. The "nine-eleven" saying sounded like a newcomer's attempt to call "nine-one-one" for trouble. 60 days ago there were 5000 more lives on the planet of Earth.
It is sad but life goes on.
"Sad hours seem long."
William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
in Romeo and Juliet, act 1, sc. 1, l. 161

Resemlance
I have a little secret. Whenever I am troubled with understanding something, I retrieve to the history books. In a way, archived articles, documentaries and historical papers are my sources of wisdom. Finally, whoever said it, history repeats itself.
When it happened on September 11, 2001, I was in shock. I just couldn't understand it. It wasn't anger or fear. It was a feeling that I am facing something I can neither comprehend nor grasp under any normal circumstances.
Watching TV on terror and war, reading news on the following spin of events was like watching an old documentary. Black and white footage of Nazis marching in Berlin of the 1930's, planes attacking Pearl Harbor, blinding nationalistic hysteria by young fascist fanatics seem to somehow make a time leap from a 60-year old newsreel into nowadays.
The old slogans and methods driven by a pathological hatred of bloodthirsty maniacs sound painfully familiar. Whenever self proclaimed prophets poison their nations with hatred, I have no doubt that those are the symptoms of the same "disease" of some race or religion superiority over another one.
It really doesn't matter in what language they make their calls. History repeats itself. The bloody cycle from the past is back. I just wish people would learn from the past. Blinding hatred leads nowhere causing thousands of people to die for a wrong cause.
Stop the terror. Learn the history lessons.
"If history repeats itself, and
the unexpected always happens,
how incapable must man be of
learning from experience."
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)

Ratified December 15, 1791
This is an emotional time. Blinding anger for terror and death of innocent people makes us looking at things through a magnifying glass.
His friend was killed aboard American Airlines Flight 11. "All Arabs should die," he told me the day after. " I can't stand this - I see his kids every day" I had no words. I was crying too. What would I have to say if those maniacs were Russians or Irish or Mexicans or Italians… Being Russian, should I take a blame for wrong doings of some fanatics if they happen to be from the country I grew up in?
In a voice chat room, a man with a mid western accent yelled "Kill the n. - kill them all" What would he yell if that was done by his neighbor next door Timothy McVeigh? "I need a machine gun NOW," a Russian woman is outraged in the other room. "I'll kill them all"
Three days later I was sitting at the meeting next to one of my co-workers who is originally from Lebanon. "Thanks for sitting next to me…" Why does she have to say that?
Terrorism conducted by a cell of bloody fanatics has nothing to do with their religion, state, color of skin, language or ethnicity. Masterminding terror from a cave in some mountains doesn't give anyone neither a right to call murder of innocent people a "holly war" nor to speak for the whole religion.
In fact, it seems to be a part of evil plan that shouldn't trap us into forgetting main principles of our society and democracy.
"Whoever seeks to set one religion
against another seeks to destroy all religion."
Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945)

Dangerous Games
Sometimes it seems to me that the strange war we are at is like a chess game. Most chess games can be found in the books. Most chess moves ever played by someone before are in these books. You just have to remember the moves and try to analyze them in order to anticipate what might be the next one.
The difficulty now is that the opponent plays unorthodox chess. His moves tend to be unpredictable. He plays an incomprehensive game making moves that were not recorded in any games played before.
It is a dangerous bloody game. Human beings are not some pieces on a chessboard. I don't think any cause can justify this kind of game where lives of innocent people are at stake.
"Life's too short for chess."
Henry J. Byron (1834-1884)

Resistance to Fear
Biological terror and scare seem like a part of a gruesome script for some mystery fiction or movie flick. Strange enough but the real life story reminds me of the best plots form the X-files and the Die Hard films. The only difference is that you can't rewind or fast-forward the tape from a scary part to the one where the good guy wins over the villain. Not yet, at least.
The truth is that the best movie heroes are not the ones who are not vulnerable and have no fear but the ones who overcome their fear in order to fight the evil.
I have no doubt who the hero is. I have no doubt how the movie will end. Let's just defeat the fear.
"Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear--not absence of fear. Except a creature be part coward, it is not a compliment to say he is brave; it is merely a loose misapplication of the word."
Mark Twain (1835-1910)

Proud to be an American
Through its history, America became home to millions of people regardless of their nationality, ethnicity or religion. I am one of them.
We live in emotional times. In the times like this we all reflect on our past and present and reevaluate on where we stand at and where we belong to.
On Feb. 16, 1996 I became a citizen of the United States of America. I am proud to be an American. I am especially proud to be an American in these days.
"In the future days, which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms.
The first is freedom of speech and expression - everywhere in the world. The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way - everywhere in the world. The third is freedom from want... The fourth is freedom from fear.".
President Franlin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945)
Address to Congress, Jan. 6, 1941

War and Peace
We live in a terrible time, time of sorrow and time of war. Generations of Americans know about wars from history books and TV reports. Now this horrible war things is real.
"How is it that millions of men
commit collective crimes -
make war, commit murder,
and so on?"
"War and Peace" by
Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910)

Why Do They Hate Us?
A while ago I was playing chess online. My opponent was really friendly. He was a good chess player.
After several opening moves, he asked me where I was from. "USA," was my short but honest answer. No back thoughts.
"You know what," said my opponent. "I am from Palestine and I hate you."
In a minute, he stopped the game and left the room. I got my win.
I care alot about winning but that one left such a strange bad taste in mouth. There were so much silly and almost pathological hatred in what he said. I still can't understand what it had to do with chess. There are strange people online and I just decided to forget it.
Some six month later, two planes crashed into the Twin Towers and six thousand innocent people lost their lives because some fanatics hated us.
Why do they hate us?

American Dream
God Bless America!
Terrorism may try to destroy our buldings and try to scare us...
But terrorism will never be able to break our spirit, our traditions and to destroy our land of freedom.
"I think I've done enough crying," said Ellen Mariani
whose husband Louis was on of those killed aboard
United Airlines Flight 175. "No one is going to stop
me from living and being free."

God Bless America
The original picture was taken in my hometown Winthrop, MA two weeks after the attack against America.
Every day when I come home, I see the Stars and Stripes on this rock in the ocean.
People entering Boston by the boats in the ocean or by the planes in the sky may see the flag too.
The evil forces of darkness will NEVER destroy our liberty and our way of life.
God Bless America!

Stop Terrorism
Terrorism has no borders, no government, no religion, no language, no state, no capital. Its foot soldiers operate in the darkness of invisible terror cells all over the world. They are the evil forces that are hard to fight with. They use other nations as a shield for their evil actions.
"They believe that their violence is divinely justified, and that great goals require dramatic means, and the dramatic means is mass bloodshed," said Daniel Benjamin, former director of the office of transnational threats in the White House.
One of the architects of this new global terrorism is Osama Bin Laden, a wealthy Saudi fugitive and a mastermind behind this new terrorist network. He is regarded by U.S. officials as the prime suspect in the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on 09.11.01.

The Shadow of Afghanistan
That was the war of my generation in Russia. Some say that it was our Vietnam. According to far from being accurate official statistics, over 15,000 Soviet soldiers never came back from the 1979-1989 war in Afghanistan. That was a war without any understandable reason but ambitions of power hungry local politicians and ignorance of Soviet political leadership of that time.
"The way they sent the Soviet army into Afghanistan was simply a crime," general-turned-politician Alexander Lebed said in a 1994 interview. "They had no idea of what they were getting us into, they knew nothing of the country or its people. It seems to me that they didn't even have a strategic plan."

Horror 9.11.01
A terrible tragedy happened today…
I am in shock...
I hate people who did it…
I hate terrorism...
My thoughts are with people who are no longer with us…
Who knows if this wound will ever be healed.