In Memoriam - 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.

Bush took us to war and freed in excess of 60 million people in the process.

Many of us may disagree with some of the ways he carried out the war, and certainly with some of his other policies.

But what cannot be denied is that he had terrorists fully engaged on foreign soil and their leaders hiding in holes in the ground. What also cannot be denied is that we did not suffer another major attack on US soil.

In addition, though they have a long way to go...and though the Taliban still is fighting...those who are free of the Taliban and of Saddam Hussein are immeasurably better of than they were under those regimes.

...and the prospect for future freedom for them, and peace fo us is bolstered.

Now we have a President who is intent on stepping back from all of that, and is going back to a pre-911 mentality and standing us all into greater danger as a result.

THE ATTACK ON AMERICA MEMORIAL SITE
ALWAYS REMEMBER - NEVER FORGET!

Eight years ago, nearly 3,000 American civilians were killed by a well-orchestrated and elaborately planned series of terror attacks designed to not only cause grievous loss of life, but to permanently cripple our economic system. Among the dead were 343 firefighters and paramedics and sixty police officers.

Eight years later, how many of us remember how we felt (not what we thought, but how we felt) on 9-11?

If not, why not? (Do you think those that came before us could not, in 1949, remember how they felt in the wake of Pearl Harbor?)

How many of us can still summon those feelings? Again, if not, why not?

The enemy that did this to us still exists, and has not changed. It is still well funded. It still enjoys tremendous popular support in its corner of the world. Most importantly to us, it still seeks to kill us by the tens of thousands.

If there is one thing about this enemy that we need to understand, it is that. This enemy intends to kill us, and to do so in large numbers. It cannot be persuaded, and it will not be deterred.

Meanwhile, here in America where the killing and dying occurred, we appear to have changed. In some corners, it didn’t take long. Within days, elements of the Democrat Party had already put partisan political interest ahead of the interests and security of the nation. (Not that many of us didn’t expect that.)

Over these past eight years, many Americans have “moved on.” To them, 9-11 has become only a distant memory, with the accent on “distant.”

How far has this gone? Not only did the current President appoint to high office a man who publicly declared his belief that the 9-11 attacks were an “inside job” and not the work of terrorists, but few in his party or the national media appeared to see it as noteworthy, much less objectionable. That President also seeks to move from Guantanamo (and likely into the American court system the cases of) the terror suspects we hold there.

But enough about this President. What about the American people?

If that enemy is still out there and remains unrepentant, should we just let bygones be bygones? Should we consider the enemy and their proxies to be reasonable and honorable people that can be trusted to live up to what they promise during a negotiation (especially when one considers their religion tells them about lying to infidels)?

Enough of that, too. Americans have, beginning with Yalta (when FDR gave Eastern Europe to Stalin and the Soviets) been almost continuously naïve and stupid in negotiating with foreign powers. Millions of innocents have paid for that stupidity with their lives. That, like the current President, we can discuss other days in other threads.

How often do we pause to honor those who perished, and those who served so heroically, on that fateful day? How often do we thank the firefighters, paramedics and police officer that, should a similar event happen today, would without question or hesitation, put themselves in harm’s way to save us? (If there is an enduring legacy of 9-11, it is how the heroic actions of the firefighters, paramedics, and police officers who responded limited the loss of life to a number far less than it otherwise might have been.)

What about all the things we told ourselves we would do in the wake of 9-11? Have we better prepared ourselves for disaster (natural or otherwise)? Have we repaired, or taken steps to improve, our relationships with those we hold dear?

Might this be a good day to not only consider, but rededicate ourselves to, what we told ourselves we would do in the wake of 9-11?

These are purely my own comments and observations on today.

9 years...it still feels like both yesterday, and a lifetime ago. The sights and sounds fade. But it’s the little things I remember. A woman who was hysterical on 20th and 1st Ave because her husband worked in the South Tower, and the phones weren’t working. The Daggie’s being out of bread. Above all, the smell. That stands out to me.

My best memories of NYC are FDNY and NYPD. You guys shone as bright as the RAF and the London Fire Brigade did in September of 1940. Like many of them, you paid a heavy price for those exquisite moments of courage. Also, let’s not forget that we have sons and daughters out there, right now, carrying on the legacy of those fallen, trying to make sure it doesn’t happen again. I don’t know if it will. If it does, I think it’s no reflection on their efforts..but the will of those appointed by the voters above them. One wonders if they remember 9/11 at all or just when it suits them. America will endure. It’s an idea. You can’t kill that. Not good ideas anyhow.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.