The young and old are lying
on the ground in the streets;
my young women and my young men
have fallen by the sword;
Those who I bore and reared
my enemy has destroyed.
My eyes flow with rivers of tears
because
of the destruction of my people
Lamentations 2: 21,22; 3: 48
Yesterday
the United States observed the anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist
attacks in which over 3,000 of her citizens perished. It was not an attack on America’s
military. Rather it was designed to kill
innocent citizens. On October 25, 2001,
Congress approved a joint resolution designating September 11 as “Patriot Day.” Since 2009, September 11th was renamed
as the more cumbersome, “Patriot Day and National Day of Service and
Remembrance.”
I have to
admit that I have mixed feelings over the hoopla that has surrounded the
observance of 9/11 each year since the tragedy.
On the one hand I believe it is right to remember those that were
senselessly killed, along with the emergency responders that worked tirelessly
to save lives in the wake of the attack.
On the other hand, I have trouble getting past those self-styled “patriots”
that used the emotional backdrop of the tragedy for their own partisan
political gains. Chief among them were
members of the Bush/Cheney administration, who at least in my mind, used the
September 11 attacks to maintain and increase political power.
First and
foremost, they created an implied link to 9/11 to dupe the nation into an
ill-conceived war with Iraq. After what
appeared to be a quick and easy victory (Mission Accomplished?), Iraq was torn
by sectarian violence and resistance to the government that the U.S. tried to
install. The weapons of mass destruction
that provided the basis for the U.S. invasion were never found. Further, the war in Iraq resulted in the
death of approximately 4,500 American soldiers and over 100,000 Iraqis. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War. If there was a winner in the war, it would
have to be Big Oil and a slew of oil service contractors. http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/19/opinion/iraq-war-oil-juhasz/index.html. And the perpetrators of this misbegotten war
were quick to wrap themselves in the American flag and to question the
patriotism of those who for good reasons were opposed to this war.
Beyond the push to invade a country that had nothing to do
with the September 11 attacks, the Bush political strategists knew the value of
a good war to help their guy get re-elected.
They learned from the mistake of Bush 41, whose artful rollback of Iraq’s
invasion of Kuwait was too successful too quickly to help him in the election
of 1992. A never ending war on terrorism
could be used by W’s strategists to declare their man a “wartime president.” The Republicans unashamedly used images from
the World Trade Center attacks and repeated the phase “9/11” in nearly every
speech in the 2004 Republican Convention, which, of course, was held in New
York City. Then Republicans turned
around and called “foul” when the Obama campaign trumpeted the killing of 9/11
mastermind, Osama bin Laden, during their guy's watch.
Then there was the so-called Patriot Act, passed quickly
after the September 11 attacks which authorized an unheard of expansion of government
surveillance over American citizens.
Many civil libertarians hoped that the Obama administration
would lobby to reduce the snooping permitted by this legislation, but instead, it
appears to have grown. This President
knows that any political gain from reducing government surveillance power would
have quickly evaporated if any terrorist act had occurred during his administration
that allegedly could have been prevented with the authorities granted by the
Patriot Act.
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| Reflecting Pool at 9/11 Memorial |
That’s why I feel ambivalent about Patriot Day. Too many mistakes were made by U.S. leaders who
used the attacks as an excuse for pursuing courses of action that actually
dishonor those who died that day. Despite
these feelings, I admit to being moved as I walked through the 9/11 memorial in
NYC during a recent visit with my son. Reading the names of those that died in the
attack as I gazed into the bottomless reflecting pools was both an emotional
and spiritual experience. Also, I admit to
feeling a twinge of patriotic pride seeing the so-called Freedom Tower (now
officially called One World Trade Center) rising toward the heavens.
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| One World Trade Center |
I think I
would feel better about the day if we could all finally draw together and agree
to once and for all stop politicizing this tragedy. I believe that Americans of all races,
religions and political parties recognize the tragedy of the innocents killed
on this day and the heroism of those who responded to the emergency to save as
many lives as possible. We should not
forget what an act of terrorism is capable of doing to innocent men, women and
children that go about their lives believing themselves to be safe from such
unexpected violence. Perhaps we would all feel
better about observing this day if we drop the Patriot Day name and call it
what it should be – a Day of Remembrance. Let’s
start a movement.
