I, like the four of five other people who might be reading this, remember what I was doing on September 11, 2001. I was at Appalachian State University. My wife, Diane, called me to tell that the television was saying that a plane had crashed into a building in New York. I remember telling her that it must have been a very small plane because it would be impossible for a large plane to hit a building in downtown New York. That was incorrect.
I then spent the rest of the morning doing what many (most?) Americans did that day. I watched the story unfold on television. I remember thinking that this was bad--that it would lead to many bad things in the world. That was correct.
I am going to quote a section from Eric Larsen's review of Wood's book. It is worth noting that Larsen wrote the forward to Where Did The Towers Go? and he openly admits that he looks favorably on Dr. Wood's effort. However, the quote that I want us to consider has nothing to do with 911 itself. It has to do with its aftermath. That is, what has become of our world since September 11, 2001.
9/11 has been “the justification and starting point” for all manner of destruction, loss, crime, and horror. Without 9/11, there would have been no “Patriot Act,” no abuse of FISA and stripping away of privacy rights, no Military Commissions Act of 2006 with its setting aside of Habeas Corpus, no implementation of Northcom and deployment of our own military forces on domestic American soil (for use against who, you might ask?), and no trashing of Bill of Rights and Constitutional guarantees, no programmatic and precedent-setting weakening and eliminating of right and guarantees so that the very concepts of “citizenship” and “freedom” have been emptied out to the point where setting up concentration camps inside the U.S. is now legal and not a one of us would have any recourse whatsoever if it were decided that we should be thrown into a cell in one of them and forgotten forever.[1]
Without 9/11, there would never have been any fake and opportunistic “Global War on Terror,” would never have been Guantanamo as we know it now, never have been official programs of torture or fake demonizing of Islam in order to justify wars in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Somalia, or to justify overt plans for the murder of U.S. citizens living in places like, say, Yemen.
There’s more, much more. The complete list of atrocities, crimes, and inhumanities triggered by or justified by 9/11 could fill whole chapters, even books. By using 9/11 as propaganda—by using it as trigger, excuse, justification, or catalyst—the U.S. has betrayed itself, its principles, and its people, and has made itself the world’s most dangerous enemy of all mankind and also of Earth herself. [Eric Larsen, http://wheredidthetowersgo.com/review/]
I am not a scientist. I am not a political activist. And, at least, historically, I have had no urgent need to understand 911. My interest here is as a Christian and as a citizen of the world. And from that perspective, I find Eric Larsen's statement here very important. He is either wrong--and the details that he mentions here are simply not real. Or he is correct in saying that our society has taken a disturbing turn away from many of its foundational principles. And if that is the case, the question seems fair to ask, "what--if anything--does this have to do with whatever happened on September 11, 2001?"
People magazine is a weekly publication. It is known for its light and happy tone. And perhaps because of this, it is one of the most popular magazines in the world. In People, readers will find pictures and simple articles updating them on what is happening with movie stars and celebrities. For example, they have an annual issue identifying the 50 or 100 sexiest people in the world. This is generally the kind of material that one can expect to find in People magazine. Did you happen to see the cover of People last week? It had a picture of a young girl and the lead story was about "the children of 911." Even my wife, who actually likes to read the magazine, was bothered by the story. She couldn't quite name what it was that bothered her so when she came to talk to me about it, I helped her. The word that she was looking for was "exploitation."
It is understandable that a worthy nation would make it a point to remember an event like 911. It is understandable that such a nation would want to honor the people whose lives were lost on that day. And it seems equally important that the remembrance and the honoring would be done in such a way that does not sacrifice the values and moral decency that made that nation worthy in the first place. Whatever our time might make or not make of a ten-year-anniversary of a national disaster, I hope that it will be something other than exploitation.
1 comment:
Mark,
When I think about 9/11, I also think about Pearl Harbor. In both cases, America was attacked in a manner that was simply inconceivable. It is easy to look back in retrospect in both cases and see that an enemy exploited an obvious gap in our security. But in both cases, the attacks succeeded not from negligence on anyone's part, but on an all too human failure of imagination on the part of the American people. In my mind, that makes what happened far less important that how we, the America people, responded. After Pearl Harbor, the American people responded with a resolve that we would all join in a shared sacrifice to prevail. Not all sacrifices were equal, but all sacrificed. After 9/11, the American people arose as one, ready to bear any sacrifice to prevail. But we weren't asked to make that sacrifice. We were told to resume our lives as if nothing had happened and were told that such indifference was the best response. And in the ensuing indifference, some sacrificed all and but most sacrificed nothing. While I had already served my country in the U.S. Army, I was ready to serve again in whatever capacity my country asked. But I was never asked, which, in my opinion, was the same as saying that my service was worthless. And while my service after 9/11 may have been as worthless as "The Widow's Mite," rejecting it along with the what millions of other Americans were willing to offer was a catastrophic mistake. During and immediately after WWII, many changes were made that made the World a better place. Those changes could not have been made without everyone having made a shared sacrifices to bring about that good. As a result of 9/11, we had within our grasp another opportunity to change the World for the better. And we threw that chance away because we decided not to accept or even ask for the sacrifices that everyone was willing to make. I fear that failure will be a turning point for the worse in American history.
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