I had overslept and I awoke to a ringing cell phone. I had been out the night before drinking, so I thought it was my boss wondering where I was. It was my brother. He stated, worriedly "The world trade center has been attacked." I quickly called my friend Courtney, woke him after making my way to the television purchased the month before. I also woke my roommate to see both towers burning.

Unbelievable.

I was living on the northside of Chicago at the time. I can still recall just how quiet the city was. Not a plane in the sky. Odd in itself. My flat was directly under O'Hare's flight traffic.

I called in at the office and let them know I was going to stay home and watch the coverage. They were busy trying to contact our associates in NYC to make sure they were okay and find out what did they know.

Watch I did - in disbelief and shock. I didn't think the second tower would fall and celebrated my confidence too soon that it would stand despite the attack. I can still remember those little dots – people, jumping to escape the fires, only to meet their deaths below. After the the second tower fell, I got online to look for more coverage. It was reported that the Sear's Tower was a target. Living in the city, this rumor raised our anxieties as you would expect.

I remember the online chat I had with a girl from Thailand who asked me who the United States was going to go to war with. Her sympathy for the loss of life was sincere as was her fear over war, but I didn't know how to answer her. I was pretty self-absorbed with my new job and my career to really care to much about politics in those days. Eventually, the baseline shifted with the selling of the Iraq War and the demonization of the Left by the Right – I found myself becoming political once again.

My mother and I talked on the phone that night. I recall expressing to her that whoever had done this should be dragged in chains through every city in the United States. This took my mom by surprise. I was a quasi-vegetarian and a pretty peaceful sort of fellow, not wanting to harm anyone. Today, I still wonder why Osama has not yet been brought to justice – dead or alive.

Anyway, where were you during that day? Would you like to share your memories?

Martyrdom is a logical consequence of applied, religious devotion. No more so than with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed the Pakistani al Qaeda leader behind 9/11, stating "this is what I wish, to be martyred." And for what? To die for the invisible Abrahamic God in the sky? It's disgusting. What's equally disgusting is the fact that we, the United States tortured him.

The CIA has acknowledged interrogating Mohammed using a simulated drowning technique known as waterboarding and condemned as torture by human rights observers. Defense lawyers have said they will challenge any attempt to introduce evidence tainted by abuse.

The whole problem with torture is that if you already have evidence that a person is guilty, then you do not need to torture. However, if you don't have evidence and torture anyway, you've already made your mind up a priori that a person is guilty and no amount of evidence to the contrary will sway you. Also, I do not give a damn that torture could produce valid information, and that information is always suspect of being reliable and accurate anyway. Torture of any degree is a violation of human rights. I thought we were that "city on the hill" and American Exceptionalism gave us a certain moral edge. If this great policy move by the all-so-wise Bush Administration loses this case because of the actions it sanctioned with the CIA, then they we only have Bush, Cheney, and the rest of that Administration to blame. (Hear that? That's the sound of Bush Apologists heads popping off in anger over my statements. Boo f'n hoo.) Source