Cord Byrd: “September 11 is now one of the darkest days in American history because of the almost 3,000 innocent lives that were…”

“September 11 is now one of the darkest days in American history because of the almost 3,000 innocent lives that were taken and because of the way in which the American people were jarred from the dream that we would experience a time of extended peace after our victory in the cold war. The attacks made against us on September 11 were not just vicious in their inhumanity and in the lives that were taken in tragic consequences, but also in the assault made by the terrorists on our very way of life, on our values. We are a nation whose founders stated right in the original American document, the Declaration of Independence, that every citizen has the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness and that right is the endowment of our Creator. Yet we were attacked on September 11 by a group that claimed to be acting in the name of God. Yet they took planes into buildings full of thousands of people without regard to the lives of those people, killing them only because they were Americans, acting in the name of God to kill almost 3,000 children of God--diverse and varied in age and demographics, as the American people are. It is in that sense that I view September 11 as an attack on our way of life. It is why we have pulled together after that as united people to resist, to strike back at those who struck at us first, through our courageous and skillful military achieving a great victory in Afghanistan.”