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Nine Eleven, ten years on

It was, after all, a bold and brilliant attack. Ambitious, aggressive, shameless, brilliant because the image of September 11 left an indelible print on the consciousness of an entire generation.

Disgusting, of course. Wrong. Pathetic. Repulsive. Violence against civilians is cowardly, the habit of insecure bullies and desperate abusers. Public violence on a grand scale is contemptuous and contemptible, designed to send a cyclical message that violence will not prevent retribution. Nine Eleven was the product of a sick mind on behalf of a sickened society. More than anything else I saw it as a call for help. Still do.

I remember reading a woman’s mystified plea, “Why do they hate us so?” I thought, America has 4% of the world’s population yet it consumes 25% of the world’s resources. They hate us because we are greedy. They hate us because we want all the world to be like America and this scares them, it denies their identity. The false premise of the puppet Bush and his cynical masters, repeated endlessly was this: “They hate us because we are free! They hate our freedoms!” This is laughable. Nobody hates Americans because they are free. They hate Americans because of the choices Americans have made and they would love them for the same reason if Americans made different choices.

How has America changed since Nine Eleven? The Bush administration engineered a massive build-up of the military-industrial complex. The Department of Homeland Insecurity spent billions to prevent repetitions, which they have, but what a low standard they set for society! The Bush administration started two wars, cynically unfunded, one of them on a basis that was proven false. Debt was not important back then! Pre-emptive strikes were. So 4,500 American servicemen died, tens of thousands were dismembered, hundreds of thousands of Afghanis and Iraqis died, suffered life-long injuries or were displaced.

How has America changed since Nine Eleven? Airlines secured their pilots behind locked, bullet-proof doors for the first time. A sensible precaution but one the airlines were too cheap to implement until this. That’s capitalism for you: deal with the problem after it happens.

Yes, but how has America changed since Nine Eleven? Before Nine Eleven, the US college industry to draw the intellectual talent of the world and that talent stayed. It innovated the future of society. No more. Our contributions to the world order are Google, Facebook, smartphones and a lot of bad photographs. Yet, ten years after nine eleven, information abounds but knowledge is missing. Most Americans could not tell you the difference between a Muslim and a Hindu. They would have to look it up first if they could be bothered! America is now associated with waterboarding, Guantánamo, data-mining of personal records, remote technology, wire-taps, profiling, renditions, secret relationships with dodgy allies and big government. It looks like an overweight and insecure has-been, the spent force in the world economy but a bankrupt spendthrift (not true but that is the perception.) America drones on with a blunt message of “death to enemy combatants” and their collateral families without knowing very much about them, or caring. Leaders bicker and we keep hiring them.

Americans received a wake-up call on Nine Eleven but have not woken up. We expect economic recovery while we consume drugs to eliminate pain and doom to convince us that others are the worse off than we are. We are all business but our currency declines. Where is the American spirit? Where is the joie de vivre? Where is the temperance, the work ethic, the determination to do the best thing? Many families of the slaughtered have moved on with their lives. Why don’t we? Where is the upbeat, can-do mindset? “Yes, we can!” said the President and a nation elected him boosted with the audacity of hope. “No, you won’t!” say the grumpy old poopers, “We can’t afford it.”‘ Too bad they did not say that before sending 25,000 young Americans towards death and disability.

The tragedy of Nine Eleven is not that 3000 civilians died. That is more than a sad thing but two hours later and 25,000+ would have died. Of course one grieves with the families of the dead but who appeals today to our “volunteer servicemen” not to sign the sordid contract of war in exchange for school? Hundreds of thousands of Americans die each year from car accidents, cigarettes, drugs, guns and obesity. Where is our outrage over that waste? Why is an American life more precious than the child of the enemy combatant? What is fair or just or christian about our attitude? It’s a cruel verb now: I drone, you drone, he drones, we drone, you drone, they drone! Are we all drones? Where is our sense of proportion?

The tragedy of Nine Eleven is that a sick society came calling and nobody heard. Forget about listening, America never even heard the call. We cried, mystified, we railed, we sighed, we flailed. We sink. We know we can’t keep it up but we carry on regardless. We were outdone by a coward and it hurt but is anybody feeling more secure today as a result of our response? How do you invest in business in a world of fear and uncertainty? Did anything good result from our response to Nine Eleven of which we should be proud?

Yes, ten years on it is right and good and proper to mourn and grieve our loss. But what did we learn? We just didn’t get it! The sickly coward, Yomama bin Haadin, retired in the stans this last ten years, now smiles in his grave under the sea. He made his point: we just did not get it.

10. September 2011 by LRwC
Categories: peace dividend | Tags: nine eleven, September 11 | Leave a comment