To the editor:

Picture this scenario: it is September 10, and I am at home in New York, instead of at school in Connecticut. For the second straight year, I am at the place where I was longing to come to following the September 11 attacks my freshman year at Fairfield. As I am browsing the Internet, doing some research (since I haven’t been able to be on my computer all week), I decided to check out whether The Mirror’s latest edition had been published online.

As the newscasters talk about the ceremonies that will occur tomorrow, the newspapers are scattered on the floor with stories of people affected the tragedies, I am reading stories about the events of 9/11 on the Mirror Web site. I must say I was quite surprised and disconcerted to read Mr. Fry’s perspective on 9/11. Is it really proper to admonish the United States for past actions and insinuating that what goes around comes around, on the second anniversary of the worst terror attack in United States history?

While I do not fault The Mirror for publishing stories that are supposed to make its readers pause and reflect, I do fault the Editorial Board and Mr. Fry for their incredible insensitivity. Some issues permit a bold statement to generate a reaction. September 11 and the thousands of innocent people who died, the devastation caused to the surrounding businesses, the heartache of not only the families of those who perished but the heartache we all feel, is not a subject that can be approached in the same way. September 11 is a day none of us will ever forget. It is a day of a national tragedy and mourning.

It is also a day that requires compassion and not justification.

As a side note, by stating that the history of this country is a history of rich white men brutally repressing everyone else and therefore implying that perhaps the 9/11 terror attacks were deserved, Mr. Fry neglects to mention one very important fact. Citizens of over thirty countries from around the world died in the terrorist attacks of September 11.

How many “destitute immigrants” were trying to earn a living, perhaps as busboys in the Windows on the World restaurant? How many professional women who were also mothers and daughters, died? Does any innocent person deserve to die?

Of course not, no matter where it is or how they died- as a Vietnam villager, a United States soldier at Pearl Harbor, an Israeli on a bus, a schoolchild taking a trip as a reward for schoolwork well done- a trip that ends in a plane crash on September 11.

Suggesting otherwise is inhumane.

Liz Collins, ’05

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