A few thoughts on the 8th anniversary of 9/11
Everyone's musing about their reaction, two presidential terms later, to the events of that bright September day way back in 2001. But amidst all the "never forget!" and varying degrees of worn-on-your-sleeve sentiment, I worry that we'll forget the lessons we SHOULD have learned...and in many cases have not.
Certainly "forgetting" is unlikely, for anyone who was paying attention, but especially for someone with my particular circumstances. I'd spent the prior eight years considering implications of mass casualty terrorist strikes, training incident commanders and firefighters and hazmat crews and cops and medics what to do if something like this ever happened. My one and only trip to the WTC complex was in the company of the NYC emergency operations team, on a lovely and memorable night, amidst two weeks spent "training the trainers" in locations all around the city. That particular week I'd been doing admin stuff at a desk at the police training center just up the road.
On 9/11/01, I was listening to NPR and just turning onto Norbeck Road in Olney when the news hit. Stunned, after a brief call to Mom, I continued on to work, though of course little got done that day. Once the horror of what had happened sunk in, and reports started coming in, I got in touch via Instant Messenger with a friend who was a student at a college just across from Manhattan, and who had a pretty clear view from his dorm room. I scrambled to reach a contact at my old company to see if any of our friends had been killed....some had, it would turn out, including the very nice fire chief who'd given me a tour of the fire museum on Randall Island. I watched the stuff we'd predicted -- the panic, the realization of our vulnerability,the desperate need for direction -- unfold, and watched as some of the training I'd helped give was applied. Seldom have I felt so proud of work that I'd done, even a tenuous connection. I feared for the many men and women whose training certificates I had printed, and frequently turned my gaze to the various service patches that were gifts of the Police, Fire, EMT, and Hazmat folks in NYC.
We panicked; some led, some followed, some ran around screaming on the sidelines. We rallied and some made noble sacrifices. I am not one of those who believes that all 3000 people killed that day were "heroes" -- but certainly those who chose to fight back on Flight 93 were, and certainly those who lost their lives saving others were. I have seldom been prouder of my country, and of the world community, than I was in the months at the end of 2001.
However, the cynical warmongers and profiteers quickly turned what should have been a national rallying cry and an unparalleled chance to reach across the aisles, to reach across the borders, to *unite*....and instead twisted that energy to their own petty aims. We wasted the moment and let Bin Laden get away; we pissed away resources in Iraq that could have been spent bringing those responsible to justice. Instead of really figuring out why they were so pissed and doing something about it -- not to make Bin Laden's ilk happy, but rather to deny them easy recruitment -- we played right into their hands. Faith in our government dropped to an all-time low while the outward symbols of empty patriotism were celebrated. Talk of "real" Americans persisted through the most recent election.
Mind you, virtually *everyone* thought Saddam had at least *some* WMD and he was a right bastard, but our nearly unilateral action cost us the respect and support of our allies. And really, those stretch beyond the ill-fated invasion of Iraq, and the bungled and wasted moment in Afghanistan. We let fear and greed and uncertainty herd us like sheep into doing things that were shortsighted and stupid. And worse, we let the pettiness and xenophobia have an increasingly prominent and unchallenged place in our national rhetoric. In short, we let ourselves be manipulated (by the decidedly non-liberal and obedient press, the political opportunists, and the corporate interests) into being stupid, angry dogs rather than the sheep we had been.
And now we have the fruits of that -- when our duly elected president can't even tell kids to stay in school without the nutjobs complaining that he's up to something, and where some asshat congressman can heckle the president during an important speech and think that, somehow, it's okay because he was angry. Worse, he called the president a liar *in public*, in an official joint session of our government. Had he been remotely correct, it would be almost understandable, but he was demonstrably and factually incorrect.
From that point of national and international unity to this?
We have collectively forgotten what it is to be American -- or at least, what it ought to be.
American values are codified and made official in the founding documents of our nation, and yet we twist and ignore them for brief political and monetary gain. Equality. Liberty. Justice for all. Not just for those folks who live here and aren't brown with hard-to-pronounce names, strange food, and foreign religions. We've retreated into easy greed and abhorrent attitudes toward our fellow man. Did 9/11 somehow give us license to distrust the Other? Have we forgotten that the the OTHER big terrorist incidents have all been *domestic*, by people like Tim McVeigh and the Unibomber?
So while some have taken issue with the recent rededication of 9/11 as a national day of service, I'll throw my lot in with those who would rather turn this horrible memory into something constructive. Merely "remembering" isn't good enough -- nor is paying lip service and making pretty speeches. We should turn those feelings into practical results. We need to pay attention and get involved in making the world better. Because the lessons of 9/11 are that compliance and ignorance and arrogance make people hate us -- not without reason -- and that we ignore our fellow man (no matter where he lives or what he believes) at our peril.
Certainly "forgetting" is unlikely, for anyone who was paying attention, but especially for someone with my particular circumstances. I'd spent the prior eight years considering implications of mass casualty terrorist strikes, training incident commanders and firefighters and hazmat crews and cops and medics what to do if something like this ever happened. My one and only trip to the WTC complex was in the company of the NYC emergency operations team, on a lovely and memorable night, amidst two weeks spent "training the trainers" in locations all around the city. That particular week I'd been doing admin stuff at a desk at the police training center just up the road.
On 9/11/01, I was listening to NPR and just turning onto Norbeck Road in Olney when the news hit. Stunned, after a brief call to Mom, I continued on to work, though of course little got done that day. Once the horror of what had happened sunk in, and reports started coming in, I got in touch via Instant Messenger with a friend who was a student at a college just across from Manhattan, and who had a pretty clear view from his dorm room. I scrambled to reach a contact at my old company to see if any of our friends had been killed....some had, it would turn out, including the very nice fire chief who'd given me a tour of the fire museum on Randall Island. I watched the stuff we'd predicted -- the panic, the realization of our vulnerability,the desperate need for direction -- unfold, and watched as some of the training I'd helped give was applied. Seldom have I felt so proud of work that I'd done, even a tenuous connection. I feared for the many men and women whose training certificates I had printed, and frequently turned my gaze to the various service patches that were gifts of the Police, Fire, EMT, and Hazmat folks in NYC.
We panicked; some led, some followed, some ran around screaming on the sidelines. We rallied and some made noble sacrifices. I am not one of those who believes that all 3000 people killed that day were "heroes" -- but certainly those who chose to fight back on Flight 93 were, and certainly those who lost their lives saving others were. I have seldom been prouder of my country, and of the world community, than I was in the months at the end of 2001.
However, the cynical warmongers and profiteers quickly turned what should have been a national rallying cry and an unparalleled chance to reach across the aisles, to reach across the borders, to *unite*....and instead twisted that energy to their own petty aims. We wasted the moment and let Bin Laden get away; we pissed away resources in Iraq that could have been spent bringing those responsible to justice. Instead of really figuring out why they were so pissed and doing something about it -- not to make Bin Laden's ilk happy, but rather to deny them easy recruitment -- we played right into their hands. Faith in our government dropped to an all-time low while the outward symbols of empty patriotism were celebrated. Talk of "real" Americans persisted through the most recent election.
Mind you, virtually *everyone* thought Saddam had at least *some* WMD and he was a right bastard, but our nearly unilateral action cost us the respect and support of our allies. And really, those stretch beyond the ill-fated invasion of Iraq, and the bungled and wasted moment in Afghanistan. We let fear and greed and uncertainty herd us like sheep into doing things that were shortsighted and stupid. And worse, we let the pettiness and xenophobia have an increasingly prominent and unchallenged place in our national rhetoric. In short, we let ourselves be manipulated (by the decidedly non-liberal and obedient press, the political opportunists, and the corporate interests) into being stupid, angry dogs rather than the sheep we had been.
And now we have the fruits of that -- when our duly elected president can't even tell kids to stay in school without the nutjobs complaining that he's up to something, and where some asshat congressman can heckle the president during an important speech and think that, somehow, it's okay because he was angry. Worse, he called the president a liar *in public*, in an official joint session of our government. Had he been remotely correct, it would be almost understandable, but he was demonstrably and factually incorrect.
From that point of national and international unity to this?
We have collectively forgotten what it is to be American -- or at least, what it ought to be.
American values are codified and made official in the founding documents of our nation, and yet we twist and ignore them for brief political and monetary gain. Equality. Liberty. Justice for all. Not just for those folks who live here and aren't brown with hard-to-pronounce names, strange food, and foreign religions. We've retreated into easy greed and abhorrent attitudes toward our fellow man. Did 9/11 somehow give us license to distrust the Other? Have we forgotten that the the OTHER big terrorist incidents have all been *domestic*, by people like Tim McVeigh and the Unibomber?
So while some have taken issue with the recent rededication of 9/11 as a national day of service, I'll throw my lot in with those who would rather turn this horrible memory into something constructive. Merely "remembering" isn't good enough -- nor is paying lip service and making pretty speeches. We should turn those feelings into practical results. We need to pay attention and get involved in making the world better. Because the lessons of 9/11 are that compliance and ignorance and arrogance make people hate us -- not without reason -- and that we ignore our fellow man (no matter where he lives or what he believes) at our peril.