Remembrance & Lamentation: Worship resources for the Tenth Anniversary of September 11

September 11, 2001 will be a date forever etched in the memory of Americans. It is a day of remembrance and lamentation. We remember the lives of those who were killed when the World Trade Center towers fell. We remember the rescue workers who gave their lives trying to save others. We remember the airplanes that crashed in Pennsylvania and into the Pentagon. We remember the smoke and fire, terror and tears, chaos and death.

  The Peace and Justice Support Network is offering to congregations these worship and action resources for remembering and lamenting on the tenth anniversary of 9/11.  

1. We grieve each of the nearly 3,000 persons who were killed in the aerial attacks on September 11, 2001
2. We grieve the Afghan people who have been killed in the resulting war, at least ten times the number of those killed on September 11.
3. We grieve the estimated 100,000 persons killed in the Iraq War which was also justified by the September 11 attack.
4. We grieve the lives of thousands of American soldiers who have been killed and those who bear life time wounds of body and spirit from the fighting in these wars.
5. We grieve the expenditure of precious resources in those wars. Official statistics confirm that over one trillion dollars have already been spent in those wars. When all the costs of those wars are considered – such as interest on the debt incurred and the life-time care of wounded veterans – a recent study suggests the cost will approach $4 trillion dollars.
6. We grieve the ordinary people and communities in our country who have sustained hardships because needed resources have gone instead to fighting wars.

Quotes on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq:

“Both wars [in Iraq and Afghanistan] have made the Middle East and the world much more dangerous for Americans and for any American presence overseas. It’s creating much greater hostility towards the U.S. and creating a whole lot more people that would be happy to kill Americans or join in some kind of terrorist operation.”
      - Graham Fuller, former CIA station chief, Kabul

“The mere presence of foreign soldiers fighting a war in Afghanistan is probably the single most important factor in the resurgence of the Taliban.”
      - Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Jan. 2009