Last year, Children's Express reporter Orlaith Graham Wood wrote about her feelings on the September 11 tragedy. One year on, she feels strongly that America is using the excuse of mourning to hurt other countries.
| I live in silent fear of further bloodshed. Will there be more terrorist attacks? Will the UK be targeted this time round? |
We're still young. We have our freedom and we have our imaginations.
We can't be in Afghanistan to see how the people have to live. We can't be in Iraq to ask a young person what she thinks. We can only imagine.
We don't have to use our imaginations to be inside the mind of George Bush. His intentions are all over the television, the papers - it's the only side of the story we seem to hear.
As America cries over its loss, we wonder what else the world is losing.
I don't think any of us have forgotten that day. The devastation lives on and now, one year later, it's time to reflect seriously and honestly on what has happened since September 11th 2001.
Thousands of innocent Afghanis have died in the name of the 'War on Terror' and many more Palestinians have perished at the hands of the U.S.-supported Israeli forces.
Trawling the Internet reveals a host of sites with disturbing, if unproven, details of the "War on Terror".
Sources allege that the U.S. Air Force has fired and continues to fire 'at will' in Afghanistan, with certain regions being designated as 'kill boxes' where aircraft patrol day and night with the sole intention of killing anything that moves.
While their unfinished business continues in one country, the American government is about to declare war with another. This can only spell more civilian bloodshed for Iraq.
In school we are taught about citizenship, about our rights and where we stand as young people in the UK. But what does it mean to be a citizen of the world?
We can't ignore everything else that goes on around us. America may have stopped spinning for a day but the rest of the world certainly didn't.
Maybe Americans do think their lives are worth more than others but what happened last year was tragic and it should never happen again.
I now live in silent fear of further bloodshed. Will there be more terrorist attacks? With Tony Blair's military involvement, will the UK be targeted this time round?
It's one year on and we're still mourning the terrible events of 9/11. If anything came out it, it's proof of how much hate there is in the world. Who knows what could happen next.
About the team
This story was produced by Orlaith Graham Wood, 14. It was published in the News Letter.
Read Orlaith's first response to September 11
The day America fell
