We'd been up early, packing and getting ready to check out of our Guatemala City hotel to catch a mid-morning flight back to Houston. We'd celebrated the evening before. The U.S. embassy had finally approved our paperwork, their very last act of business on the afternoon of Sept. 10. What they'd done was give final approval to an excruciatingly long adoption process. Nicky, then less than 6 months old, had officially been made a U.S. citizen.

We were so damn proud and relieved to be finished with all of it, to be able to take our baby home. There'd been plenty of setbacks, bumps and bruises. We took our lumps and now our boy was going to come home with us.

Then we got the phone call from Christi's Dad in Texas. What he was saying to me over the phone did not make sense, and he knew that, so he had us tune in to the Spanish-language version of CNN broadcast over the hotel's cable.

At that moment they put on the first images of the first plane slamming into the World Trade Center. I could not make my brain accept the images as being reality. My brain kept telling me this was movie footage.

Gradually the enormity of the tragedy sunk in. We tried to call friends and relatives back home and at various places in the United States and Canada. Suddenly none of the phones were working. We called the Guatemala City Airport to see whether flights had been affected. No, no, we were told. Everything's on schedule. Come on down.

Wrong. What appeared to be 10,000 people were lined up at all of the counters when we got to the airport, watched over by the ever-present machinegun-toting Guatemalan military. We waited with our new baby and luggage in a chaotic que for what seemed like three hours, inevitably to be told all flights were cancelled and no one knew what would happen next.

For six or seven days, we went through a ritual of checking travel agencies and airlines and begging for passage back home. I will not go into my tirade against Continental Airlines other than to say I had to present a $300 bribe to one of their Guatemalan representatives in order to get them to honor our tickets.

But that was later. In the meantime, we were stuck. We met other adoptive American parents and made American and Guatemalan friends. (The Guatemalans wept over the terrorist attacks as if they had occurred in their country. To an extent, the United States symbolizes hope to the Guatemalans - a way out of the misery foisted on them by their incredibly corrupt government. And at the time that source of Hope was under attack.)

Time passed slowly. We ached to be home, afraid something would happen to take Nicky from us before we could get to America, afraid for what was happening to our country.

After a week, the day came that we were able to bribe our way onto a flight. George Bush Airport was eerie. Empty, like a ghost town. No one but the people on our flight stood in what is usually an enormous line for customs, and the INS.

Tears filled my eyes at home and patriotism filled my heart, to see all the flags. A relative had even found a little flag to attach to our porch swing. We had a surprise group of friends and relatives greet us when we walked in the house.

As an American, I have never been prouder - or angrier. Every person I knew was ready then, to march shoulder-to-shoulder against whatever evil had committed such a monstrous act. I'd never been a George Bush Jr. supporter, but I took back every mean comment I'd made about him and was ready to follow him through a brick wall at that time.

At first I didn't want to believe it. I was in denial. But little by little it became clear that President Bush's tough words against terrorists also carried hidden political meanings. Soon it was apparent that he and his cohorts had crafted an incredibly cynical plan to turn the evil events of Sept. 11, 2001, to their political advantage.

Lies built upon lies. Every action from the White House and Pentagon and Justice Department, and from the congressional leadership and Supreme Court - all of it came cloaked in patriotism and even Providence. But the core turned out to be morally repugnant, cheap, rotten politics. Anything for a buck for Halliburton or a polling point for the president or a legal precedent in the pocket of the "religious" "right."

To me, 9/11 symbolizes my awakening to the disgusting and corrupt reality of American politics in the 21st Century, where nothing is sacred and everything is subject to being used or stepped on by those currently in power, if it will in any way further their poorly disguised agendas.

Osama bin Laden? He's still out there laughing at us and spitting on the graves of the innocent people he killed just to make a point.

George Bush Jr. and Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney and John Ashcroft? They're still out there playing the 9/11 Card to further their own careers - plucking America's heartstrings to her face and shredding our hard-won freedoms behind her back, hitting us in places the bin Ladens of the world could never reach.

"There are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpation." -- James Madison

"Our interest is in not trying them and letting them out. Our interest is in -- during this global war on terror -- keeping them off the streets, and so that's what's taking place." -- Donald Rumsfeld

Oh Nick, you're a great guy, excellent writer, and your perspective is certainly widely shared, especially abroad, but also by a substantial number here.

But I just don't see it that way, as I am sure you have picked up by my posts on the matter. I am not a Republican, nor a conservative, nor was I a fan of Bush pre-9/11, but I see the war on terror as exactly right, appropriate, critical, and the most important issue of our time.

Bush is a politician and not above manipulation, but I don't see it in this matter. It's not the corporations, nor the politicians, nor the puppetmasters behind the scenes - it was just time to begin to clean up this mess, and Afghanistan was first, Iraq is second, and the continued pursuit of al Qaeda is third. The only other option is suicide. Have a great weekend.

Whoa, Eric!
Ease up on that "great guy," etc. stuff if you please. ;-)
How on earth can you tell?
Seriously, we'll just have to differ, then, on "the most important issue of our time", which I sincerely hope keeps as few people as possible from having a decent weekend.
Thanks, Bob, for as honest and touching an account as any I've read from people on all sides of this "terrorism" dilemma.
It's clear, for my part, that I've never thought Iraq was really about WMD, a threat from Saddam to US security, or even Al-Qaeda.
Not until the administration started putting out further smoke on finding that Iraq has now become a terrorist hotbed in place of a foul dictatorship.
So where does America go from here? Send in ever more troops? Continue making love to the UN, so cynically dismissed just a few short months ago? What about the Iraqi people, "liberated" from one hell to land slapbang in another?
Or does whoever might be in Washington, unimaginably, rethink the policies, notably with regard to Israel, that have for decades helped open the door to the poisonous hatred of those who claim to be acting in the name of some Islamic cause?

Yup, obviously the war in Iraq is having "appalling long-term consequences." At least two of the three Husseins are dead, and the other one ain't accomplishing much if he is alive. The torture chambers and rape rooms have been shut down, and people are starting to work their way back from decades of oppression. Lots of nasty terrorists have been killed and arrested. It's just awful what's happening there.

As to alienating our "friends," if knocking down a genocidal monster like Hussein and killing terrorists before they come kill us and them alienates them, then they weren't much friends to start with. We don't need the permission or approval of others to defend ourselves, though we in fact have the support of many countries in many ways.

The main thing is that some rat bastards attacked US here at home. Now we're taking the fight to them. We're the good guys, they're the bad guys. It really is that simple, and all your Noam Chomsky chatter won't change that.

Neither you nor anyone else has to like it. We're not going to just sit here passively waiting to get killed in order to avoid your tongue lashing. (Lower please:)

What, Dubya acting like a politician? Uh, he's an elected official, and is to a substantial extent SUPPOSED to act like a politician, positioning himself and persuading US countrymen to support him. For a politician, he's been unusually honest and straightforward.

The goalposts aren't moving. Here they are: you try to kill US or help those who are doing so, and we're liable to fucking smash you like an insect. We're a wealthy country, and we can afford plenty of Raid- however much is required to do the job, wherever the insects want to hide.

Your hate-filled language gives you away, Al.
Read up on the simple facts.

And by the way, I got another message from that Hotline Up in the Sky:
He/She sends you best wishes and suggests you get that beam in your eye checked out.

Nick, I make it a point to assume the best about people until proven otherwise and I have no reason to think you are not a great guy. Um, no offense.

The buzz word that just leapt out at me is Israel - there isn't much to rethink - we support the only democracy in the region, who are not perfect, but who is? And it is time for Arafat to go - dead or alive.

There's no beam in my eye, Augustine. Not even a splinter. I have not been killing random Arabs, nor desiring to.

It is totally appropriate to hate those who would kill you and yours. Protecting your very life, and those of your family is the most fundamental cornerstone of any legitimate moral code. I reject fake intimations of moral superiority by those who would claim otherwise. In fact, you'd have to lack love for yourself and your family not to have animosity for those who wish you harm.

I would not characterize my own position as "hate," however. My blood is not boiling. My emotional state is not agitated. I simply have a cold disregard for those who would kill US.

As far as I'm concerned, Al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, et al are mere vermin. I don't particularly hate rats, I just recognize that they are nasty and dangerous, and have to die. I feel no compulsion to fake concern for vermin.

I don't know what kind of false god you're praying too (Karl Marx would be my best guess), but I'll have no part of any supposed deity that says we need to just let little punks come in and kill us in our very homeland without responding with all due force to stop them.

Al, your guess is way off the mark (or the Marx!).

But this conversation isn't getting us anywhere. You've made up your mind about what's black and what's white and that's that. I'll just crawl back to my technicolor universe.