September 11, 2001

For Americans old enough to think for themselves on September 11, 2001, that date will mark the day when the whole world changed - in the twinkling of an eye. Adults will try to explain to children not yet born just how the events of that day and the world's reaction to those events shaped the world they grow up in.

Before we make that new world, we need to see if we can learn from history, try not to repeat it and try to do a better job of extending the breadth and reach of peace and freedom in the future.

We, the average American citizen, ignored worldwide terrorism because it usually ignored us on our own soil. Such was our folly. We knew what was going on. We know the regimes that actively support terrorists and we continued to deal with them while they dismissed our anti-terrorism pleas. We know that the terrorists often hold us up as the great evil in the world. We know who the regimes are that allow, and sometimes help the religious fundamentalists who raise the armies of young zealots. We know which countries provide safe harbor for the fanatics who raise the funds to support the training of those zealots in schools of terror.

For very short term gains, we played geo-political games with all the regimes that harbored and supported terrorists or who supported the religious fanaticism which supplies the foot soldiers and funds for the terrorists - short-term diplomatic gains, which proved worthless after less than two hours of death and destruction.

All the undemocratic regimes in the Middle East exercise authority by dictatorial force - nothing goes on within their borders that they do not allow to go on. They have kept their governments in power by paying blackmail to religious fundamentalists who want to get power for themselves. Squashing politically democratic and moderate Islamic forces pays a large part of that blackmail. Another part is paid by allowing the fundamentalists to vent their wrath as long as it is directed at the United States and its western allies. Promoting Israel as the scapegoat for their regimes' failures and for the failures of Islamic Arabs in particular makes their final blackmail payment.

As long as the fanatics accept those payments and do not move against their own governments, they are allowed to operate within and across the borders of most of the states in the Middle East, including states that claim to be our friends, like Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

Their folly is that all the political blackmail paid to the terrorists and their religious fanatic supporters has not diminished the long term goal of the fanatics, to sweep away most of the Middle East regimes and impose a Taliban style theocracy everywhere. As the Islamic fundamentalists see it, all the moderate Middle Eastern regimes, the secular dictatorships like Syria and the autocratic Arab princes have only the U.S. to thank for their continued existence. The average citizens in those countries should take their lessons from the millions who have fled from the Taliban and from the Iranian people who have rejected the choices of their religious leaders.

Meanwhile, underneath every non-democratic regime in the Middle East is a very large fuse of fanatic resentment just waiting for the right spark to set it off. Osama bin Laden is hoping he has just ignited that spark and he hopes our reactions will shorten the fuse.

The undemocratic Islamic regimes are weak and will remain vulnerable unless they promote democratic reform from within while using their remaining power to stifle the fundamentalist fanatics' ability to blunt reforms. They can continue to allow the Taliban style religious fanatics and terrorists to flourish within their borders until those fanatics can actually challenge them for power. Or, they can defend a politically moderate and religiously tolerant course while they arrest or turn over the terrorists from their lands and have our support in doing so.

What we should do is to make the undemocratic Middle Eastern regimes face up to their suicidal folly now, instead of later. If they fail to purge their fanatics and fail to reform politically, they will continue to provide the breeding ground for the suicidal fanatics and their regimes will fall, one way or another. As long as they pay political blackmail to the fundamentalists and the terrorists, the only question left for them will be whether or not they avoid, or win, or lose a civil war before their terrorists are defeated.

In facing the battles to achieve our goals, at home and abroad, what kind of country will the United States become? What will happen to the very purpose behind who we are, as a nation - our freedom? How big and how intrusive will our police state have to become to protect us during this war? Will we repeat past errors, will we define citizenship by our religion or by the country of our parent's birth?

Later on, if terrorism continues without direct state support, clinging to the fringes of society in weak countries and through corruption in our own midst, will we be in a war with no end, where final victory is never declared? Will our own demagogues use the ever-present threat of terrorism as the rationale to erode the liberties that are the hallmark of our society? Will the necessities for our own security make our government the very kind of restrictive regime, which the terrorists want to impose on the world? If that happens, who will claim victory?

In making our alliances to win the battles to come, what will we have to compromise for the sake of those alliances? What freedom-hating violent dictatorships will become our new friends of convenience? After the current battles are over, what will the oppressed people under such dictators think of us, and how will they want to behave toward us? If newly democratic Serbia, with Russian support, asks to have Kosovo back in its fold, will we accept the definition of Kosovar militias as terrorists? Is that the same definition China will ask us to accept of Tibetans who oppose China's rule? If we do not accept such compromises will our alliance hold together? If we do accept them, are we saying that our freedom from terror can only be won by supporting the continued lack of freedom for others? Will we even acknowledge the implications of our choices on the lives of millions of innocent people all over the world?

We often behave with the acknowledgement of the great power that we are, while simultaneously thinking of ourselves as just another country doing no more than looking out for our own self-interest. As individuals, we never see how millions of innocents the world over are expecting us to do right by them as well, hoping and believing that we have the power to better their lives as we seek to protect our own. To deny our responsibility to consider them is to deny the very foundations of our greatness - our belief in our founding principles.

We need to take every necessary step to join with others in the world to stamp out terrorism, and we should not stop until it is done. We need to use every measure we can to secure our safety while preserving our freedoms, and while honoring the obligations our power and our principles bestow on us.

However, in order to succeed in those endeavors, we have to be smarter than we have ever been at choosing our friends and defining our foes, and at choosing and fighting our battles. We have to think harder than we have ever thought about the long term and possible unintended consequences of our choices, or we will repeat the history of previous mistakes, and unnecessarily extend the cycle of violence for future generations. We must be prepared for hard choices that might make the current struggle longer and more difficult but leave a more secure and extensive peace at the end.

Honest people of any religious faith should not look for God's hand in the evil that humans can do to each other. Instead, look for God in how people respond to evil. The choice is always ours and our goals should be directed toward security and justice, not revenge.

Terrorism is a manifestation of an evil reaction to the perception of freedom denied. The fact that that perception may be warped is not investigated by the terrorist. The fact that the terrorist is often raised in a society that denies real freedom is seldom acknowledged.

The one victory that is most worth achieving is the freedom from terror for Americans that will only come when freedom itself is secure around the world, for all people.

This is an anniversary posting. It was originally brought to the FreeRepublic community a few years ago. The only additional comment I would like to make is for the readers to note the original date of publication - 9/28/2001.

If you have a Lexis-Nexus type of account where you can seek any and all publications, from any source, as I have done, I do not think you will find an oped piece that was as comprehensive as this, regarding 9/11 and publsihed as early as 9/28/2001.

My oldest son (now 10) remembers the day, and the coverage, and some of how life was before, but his youngest brother was 3 months old at the time, and I think he was going through a lot of changes at that time (he also has a brother who was 20 months old on 9-11). Upheaval all around. They in turn know no different. I think about that often.

I will spend extra time today with each of them, but especially my 10 yr old, he's very attune to the news, current events etc, and he knows how we feel, so I'm sure he has the same anger/hurt we feel. I need to make sure he and his brothers have an outlet in case they need it.

I still plainly remember the first WTC attack...

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So do I, I was there and it rocked me. In 01 it took me half a second to know what was happening.

The thing is that we, as adults know how the entire mindset of the world changed after 09/11. From very small to very large ways, there is so much of our world that has been modified to either acknowledge the fullness of the terrorism we are dealing with, or to fight it and prevent it, or to develope institutions, economies and cultures to see that it does not continue to grow.

Thus, security, education, jobs, politics, religious sentiment, world affairs and world problems have all been adjusted to a post 9/11 reality that we finally awoke to only on 9/11. The world was changing to this post 9/11 reality for many years, but we were not seeing those changes for what they were, until 9/11.

My fear is that the same sort of lack of awareness - of the real threat - is already happening with too many people, in regard to Iran.

So do I, I was there and it rocked me.

Glad you made it out okay. I could not believe how long it took to evacuate the building. Ironically, that attack in 1993 save a lot of lives in 2001. Could you imagine trying to evacuate that building without all the safety changes the first attack brought about?

I didn't know how significant it was until 9/11.

I don't think I did either until I saw the PBS documentary about what was going on in the mosques here in the good old USA. That got me to paying attention. After Bojinka I knew there was really a problem...the bulk of the problem being our elected officials not seeing it as a problem...

Actually, I was at street level on my way to a lunch meeting in number four.

On the 11th I was home when my oldest called me and told me to turn on the TV. He was there. I told him right away that it was an attack, get as far away as you can as fast as you can. As I finished saying that the second plane hit right over where he was standing. He dropped his phone and ran. I didn't hear from him again until after noon.

The next day we were both in there digging.

I told him right away that it was an attack

That probably saved his life. I think there being a second plane would be too hard to believe...even if it was right over your head.

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