9/11 in Baghdad


I doubt you’re going to read any more powerful review of Fahrenheit 9/11 than this one from Baghdad Burning.

I constantly wonder, three years after 9/11, do Americans feel safer? When it first happened, there was a sort of collective shock in Iraq. In 2002, there was a sort of pity and understanding- we�ve been through the same. Americans could hardly believe what had happened, but the American government brings this sort of grief upon nations annually� suddenly the war wasn�t thousands of kilometers away, it was home.

How do we feel about it this year? A little bit tired.

We have 9/11�s on a monthly basis. Each and every Iraqi person who dies with a bullet, a missile, a grenade, under torture, accidentally- they all have families and friends and people who care. The number of Iraqis dead since March 2003 is by now at least eight times the number of people who died in the World Trade Center. They had their last words, and their last thoughts as their worlds came down around them, too. I�ve attended more wakes and funerals this last year, than I�ve attended my whole life. The process of mourning and the hollow words of comfort have become much too familiar and automatic.

(Official Fahrenheit 9/11 Reader)