I'm watching Turning Point: 9/11 on NetFlix... not a whole lot of info I haven't seen in documentaries before... but gathered together in this semi-chronological way with new interviews... it's just so upsetting.
The series brought me back to that Tuesday morning... I clearly remember... I was on a call... a meeting... with this guy who was working from home... and he said "oh shit, a plane has just hit the World Trade Center... I'm watching it on The Today Show... I gotta call you back."
My employer at the time had moved to Charlotte from Manhattan, and still maintained our legal offices in the WTC, and some of our employees had spouses, relatives, etc. who were first responders. So it was personal in our office - we were worried about people we knew! A New Yorker friend was led out of the building in hysterics - I only found out later that her daughter worked in the WTC and all the phone circuits to the Northeast were down so she couldn't contact her.
About noon, the entire staff gathered in front of the building to pray and sing songs like "God Bless America". We were dismissed at 1-ish, and told to stay home on Wednesday. Nancy and I met at a bar in our neighborhood and watched the news in NY, DC and PA over several beers.
What a horrible day... a horrible week... a fucking horrible time in our history.
But damn, the snow job that followed leading to the police state and covert monitoring of our CITIZENS under the Patriot Act, enhanced interrogation that never produced viable intel, blatant lies around WMDs, the inhumanity of Abu Ghraib...... for me this aftermath is even more horrible than the Tuesday morning. I mean that - sue me. Twenty years of horror.
This series interviews many insiders turned whistle-blowers who were saying the same things we all were thinking. One guy actually said that adding Iraq into the mix, plus torture, is what led us on this 20-year path.
Damn, damn, damn........ Iraq was so unnecessary... was the door that led us to the shitshow where we are today. And was definitely the door that led to the decisions that I've made in my life over the last 10 years.
It's worth your time to watch it.