In Memoriam
September 11th, 2001
In the intervening 16 years we have spent hundreds of billions of dollars, trampled on peoples rights, created huge new government bureaucracies, and can’t respond as well as the third world to a natural disaster.
It seems like we are constantly being told that every new group that appears anywhere is capable of another 9/11 attack, so what is the point if we are no safer?
Richard Clarke: “Your government failed you. Those entrusted with protecting you failed you. And I failed you. We tried hard. But that doesn’t matter, because we failed. And for that failure, I would ask, once all the facts are out, for your understanding and for your forgiveness.“
6 comments
If nothing was done what would it have been like? I, personally, like you, probably, would have remained unaffected. Most of the USA would have remained unaffected. In fact, those affected would have been less than 10% of one year’s worth of trafic fatalities.
But something was done. An evil was propagated through the land. It made Americans fearful. They feared the gods , the dress and beards of others. Those same others who opened their temples to shelter the victims of Harvey
Me?
I’d rather be one of “the Ones who Walk Away From Omelas”*
https://www.utilitarianism.com/nu/omelas.pdf
Some people feel the need to hate, which comes from fear. They don’t stopr to analyze the problem, they just pick something they don’t like and attack it. This is how we ended up in Iraq, an action based on lies and prejudice. There isn’t as must terrorism today as there was in the late ’60s and ’70s, but facts don’t mean anything to frightened people. The true evil are people who prey on the frightened and give them simple answers.
Ben Franklin told everyone that you can’t trade liberty for security, because you end up losing both.
Yesterday was national teen and tween eye roll day. At military boot camps all around the United States, drill sergeants had to sit their charges down and answer their questions about something that happened before they were old enough to know what was happening around them. We have a whole generation now for which 9/11 is as remote as Pearl Harbor. This shit’s been going on for *sixteen years*. Enough.
Everyone directly involved in the mission is dead. Most of them died as a part of the mission. When they withdrew the Special Ops people from Afghanistan to attack Iraq, the Afghan mission should have been over, They should have admitted that Bin Laden wasn’t their target. Everything that has been done since is bullshit to keep people frightened. None of it serves any real purpose, but they are doing it anyway.
Repeal the authorization for the use of military force and stop trying to start a war with North Korea and Iran. Don’t build walls, build the roads and bridges that need to be replaced and the infrastructure to reduce the damage that will be caused by climate change.
To anybody under age 21, 9/11 is as remote as the War of 1812. It’s ancient history, and they have no patience with all this scare tactic stuff around the date. Might as well shout “Remember the Alamo!” for all the relevance it has to them. The warmongers are the past, these kids are the future, and they’re sick of a war that’s been happening all of their life for reasons that make no sense to them. The war will end, eventually. The only real question is whether our nation will end with it.
Too many of the people in charge can’t let go of the War of the 1860s, and for many of them, none of their ancestors were even in this country at the time. [See Trump, Donald J.] Further most of those banging war drums made a point of not finding time for basic training, etc. [ibid.]
The kids aren’t stupid. They have access to more information than you and I dreamed of growing up. When hurricanes hit down here when I was a child, you didn’t get days of warning, you got hours, and you got that from flags being raised at the mouth of the bayou.
The wars aren’t making us safer, they are creating more enemies.