9/11 10 Years On
It’s been ten years now.
A decade today.
And frankly, I think that’s about enough.
There comes a point where you have to stop reliving horror over and over.
There comes a point where you have to say enough, this and no more.
I think a decade is enough time.
Now, don’t get me wrong, the events of September 11th, 2001 were traumatic on a national scale. 911 was a shock like no other in American history, hell, maybe even in world history. The modern Information Age saw to that, bringing it right into our living rooms without any delay to soften the impact, live and in horrifying color.
All of us remember where we were and what we were doing on that terrible morning, I know I certainly do.
I’m not in any way saying that we should forget, but there comes a point where you have to allow history to become history.
There comes a point where you have to move on.
Today marks a decade now, since 911. In that time, we went to war and seven thousand more Americans, some of our very best, died. Tens of thousands more were maimed and scarred and damaged forever. Hundreds of thousands of innocents died. Entire countries were laid waste and we became a callous people who could look upon those devastated lands and say, well, you know they had it coming, all of those bastards had it coming including their goddamned children. We became a nation that tortures people and disappears people and detains people, including our citizens, indefinitely without trial or recourse in abject repudiation of the very spirit of our nation’s own founding – and we are unashamed of that and unrepentant. We have become a nation where, as an American, you must put aside your freedom a dozen times a day. You must show your papers. You must submit to naked body scanners and you must allow unsmiling uniformed men with the force of secret laws behind them to grope the most intimate areas of your children and yourselves. Such has become the price of freedom in America. We have become a nation where you – as an American – can be detained for a glance or a gesture or a careless word or for checking out the wrong book from the library or for worshipping the wrong God. We have become a nation where the only acceptable response to uniformed authority is immediate and polite submission, talk back, question, stand pat on the rights of previous generations and you’ll be branded an enemy. We have become a nation that claims to revere liberty and justice, but believes those things can only be had when secret agencies monitor our every email and our every communication without warrant or probable cause.
The day after 911, September 12th, 2001, Congress stood upon the steps of the Capitol with the smoke of the burning Pentagon sill hanging in the air above their heads and solemnly pledged to the American people that they would put aside their partisanship and their personal agendas and work together for the sake of our nation. And in the decade since we have become a nation divided instead, a nation of partisan rancor writ large – and those who stubbornly proclaim their patriotism loudest are the very ones who would lead us into civil war and secession. They would destroy what terrorists could not.
In the decade since 911, we have found those responsible, rooted them out, and ground them into dust. It took ten years, but Osama bin Laden is dead at the hands of Americans. So is his successor. So are hundreds of his lieutenants. So are thousands of his foot soldiers. So are many, many others, including Americans.
But it has not brought us closure.
It has not brought us peace.
It has not healed us as a nation.
911 was horrifying. It was personal to us all, every single American. It left us scarred, as a nation, traumatized.
And we keep using that horror as an excuse to lash out in a massive case of collective post traumatic stress disorder.
The wounds of that event run deep and are still raw a decade later – but those wounds will not heal so long as we keep picking at the scab over and over and over.
Today, we will relive the horror yet again – a fevered nightmare that simply won’t go away because we will not allow it to go away.
Again, don’t get me wrong, we should always remember the events of September 11th, 2001, just as we remember Pearl Harbor or the assassination of John F. Kennedy or the hundred other events that shocked and traumatized our nation. But if we are to heal, if we are to move on, we have to stop reliving that horror over and over.
Certainly we should build the memorials and lay the wreaths.
We should always remember the names of the fallen and hold them sacred.
But we need to stop covering ourselves in the blood of that day.
Today, right now as I write this, hundreds of media channels will play the recordings of those trapped in the towers. They’ll play those recordings over and over and over again. Recordings of the tortured calls to emergency services and the final calls to loved one. And we’ll listen, yet again, to the intimate agony of those dying people. They will play on endless loop the videos of those who jumped seventy stories to their death, lingering lovingly on their faces, speculating about their last moments, reveling in the horror. They interview those who witnessed the death and destruction and horror and they’ll beg, “Tell us what you were thinking. Tell us what you were feeling at that very moment.” We don’t need to know what they were feeling, what they were thinking, because we felt the same exact thing. We’re still feeling it. But we’ll listen anyway. And we’ll watch the towers fall. We’ll see the Pentagon crumple and explode. We’ll hear the tapes of the air traffic controllers, of the horrified confusion in the towers, and the phone calls of those Americans who fought back above the corn fields of Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
I hear those tortured voices, I see those dying faces, and I don’t feel hate. I don’t feel a need for revenge. Instead I feel revulsion. There is something obscene about listening to 911 calls, any 911 call. While those records may have value to history, it is nothing but a voyeuristic grotesquery to broadcast those intimate communications to a public jaded by reality TV and violent slasher flicks.
It serves no purpose whatsoever but to keep open festering wounds that should be long scabbed over.
Today, pundits and politicians will use this anniversary to drive us further apart, to reopen the wounds, for their own selfish agendas, to further inflame partisan fervor and to brand their neighbors as enemies and un-American.
And we will let them do it, because in the decade since 911 we’ve become a nation of cutters who hack at our own flesh with mean abandon.
Since 911, an entire generation has been born and grown to self-awareness.
Those young Americans have never known their nation at peace.
They have never known a nation that is not divided.
They have never had a single day where they weren’t told to hate their neighbors and to report them if they don’t seem patriotic enough.
They have never lived a single day in a nation that wasn’t bent to the terrible business of revenge.
They have never known a nation that didn’t roil in fear and cringe in terror every single day.
They have never flown on an airplane without having been treated like a criminal.
They have never checked out a book from the library without having been subject to secret scrutiny.
They never sent an unmonitored email or made an unmonitored phone call.
They have never lived in a house that isn’t subject to unwarranted search.
They have never had the right to redress or legal challenge when their name is placed on secret lists – and in point of fact, they don’t even have the right to know if their name is on that list at all.
They have never lived in a nation where they have the right to confront their accuser and demand proof of more than just suspicion.
They have never lived without the threat, however unlikely, of being disappeared.
They have never lived in a nation that didn’t regard the torture of human beings as an acceptable option.
This new generation has lived under the shadow of those falling towers every single minute of every single day since the moment they were born.
The terrorists didn’t do that.
We did it to them.
It’s been ten years today.
It’s time to move on.
As challenging as it is sometimes to believe in the general “good”, I want to say here that I have never lost faith in the individual good of my fellow Mudpuppies. I feel so lucky to spend time among you. Thank you, and lots of love.
Seconded.
Moving on is not the same thing as forgetting. Parents live with the heartbreak of loss regardless of what event takes their child. Mr. Wright’s point in his post is that the entire country should not be trapped in grief that does not heal, creating devastation in other countries, wasting the lives of other Americans’ children serving our nation, and cannibalizing our own citizens and communities in the name of safety. Respect for those who suffered tragically should not leave us vulnerable to cynical exploitation at the hands of profit-seeking media and industries benefiting from war, survellience and tracking of Americans. What has happened to our nation in response to 9/11 is not a positive outcome respectful of those we lost.
Thanks AKM for including Mr. Wright’s blog post on your own site.
A big thank you to everyone who posted their thoughts. It gives insight into the soul of our Nation as we stand now and as we stood before 9-11. A special thanks to Jeanne,Snos,Linda and Shannyn and all others who provide this space for our opinions,whether we agree or not.
The last few days I have had the exact same thoughts as Jim Wright with respect to the massive number of human lives lost. What happened on that fateful day was tragic. Families lost their loved ones. Individuals lost their friends. In the aftermath the nation lost over twice as many to war as were killed on 911. A million more Afghanis and Irqais lost their lives. And America lost its bearings.
Our leaders in Washington used the heinous attack to scare its own citizens. They said we were attacked by people who hate us for our freedoms! They told us terrorists were waiting around every corner, hiding in every shadow. They conjured up images of mushroom clouds and a whole lot of other scary scenarios as reason to got to war. What baloney! But it worked: most Americans became a fearful people consumed with exacting revenge on Muslims, Arabs, Middle-eastern people, including fellow Americans.
America is more than just a physical place on the map. It is a way of life that people all over the world believe-in, yearn for and hope that one day they, too, will live where freedom, justice and equality are the law. But that America does not really exist much anymore.
In an instant the ideals America had been built on, our forefathers & ancestors fought & died for, and had been cherished and championed for over 200 years were carelessly cast aside for a false sense of security. And now without understanding what fear has wrought we are living with the consequences.
Today America is a nation that gives countenance to revenge killing, tolerance for police and military abuse — even torture whether practiced or not — acceptance of warrantless spying, approval for continuing military action without end or justifiable reason & acquiescence to indefinite imprisonment on grounds of suspicion not evidence.
Yes I agree it is time to put 911 in its rightful place in history, but in the perspective of what defines America today as opposed to what defined America before 911.
Otherwise just replaying the whole sordid experience each year for days-on-end 24/7 ad naseum serves no real purpose other than the event itself notwithstanding.
‘We have seen the enemy and it is us.’
We have seen the enemy and it is us.’
yes indeed. it is us. we have allowed the scum of the earth in the form of people like Bachmann, Cantor, Thomas, Scalito, Perry; and all their ilk to gain positions of power in our country. it is up to us to get rid of these disgusting creatures and to drive the haters back under their rocks. we need to make noise my friends. we need to be serious with our friends,our families and our neighbors. let them know that what they do and say has consequences that can make or break these United States of America.
I couldn’t agree more, Mr. Wright. As a nation, we need to move on. Individuals still need our support, as violent death is never far from the hearts of those that must bear that memory.
Thank you so much for your thoughtful piece.
Jim, thank you for posting this. No one is asking anyone to forget. But it doesn’t work to live your life dwelling on the loss of someone you love. My father died when I was ten. What kind of life would I have had if that’s all I thought about, if that filled every day with sadness. And it certainly is not what he would have wanted for my mother and me. He loved us and he loved life, he enjoyed a good joke. I was robbed of the chance to really get to know him – that has only come through the stories my mother used to tell me about him. It wasn’t the same, but no amount of tears or sadness or regret would bring him back or give me those moments that weren’t ever going to happen. He didn’t see me graduate from high school or college, get married, have two lovely daughters or become the woman I am today. And 52 years later, I have not forgotten my father, but I laugh, love, cry, smile, frown, do things with my family – all those things that people who are still living do.
Whether a death is from illness or a tragedy, those who survive have to keep on living. As Jim said so wisely, we all have to move on.
As it turns out, I made that decision 9 years ago. My birthday is September 11. For 51 years, no one but my family and close friends and me cared. Like everyone else, I spent hours watching the live coverage and the replays of the towers coming down; I spent more hours on the internet talking to firneds all around the world. We were supposed to leave on a family vacation to Disneyland the next day.
That, of course, didn’t happen. We were given the chance to cancel all the plans with a full refund. But we decided that the terrorists had stolen enough of our time, our lives, and we chose to take the trip. We were on the first plane out of SeaTac that Friday. It was a scary and strange flight – completely full and mostly silent until we landed in San Diego. We spent half a day at the nearly empty San Diego Zoo, then drove to Anaheim. Disneyland was a strange place to be. New security measures – the bag checks were done by police, not Disney personnel. And no one argued. No one complained. That was appropriate less than a week after our nation had been attacked. The flags were at half staff in Disneyland and I’ve never seen more American flag shirts. I remember seeing several Muslim families, and I was relieved that no one bothered them.
So why did we decide to go? Not because Bush told us all to go shopping. That was silly and poorly worded. But I felt then, and I still feel, that by changing our plans or our lives any more than we had to, we would be letting the terrorists win. And I just refuse to do it. While we waited to get on the airplane on September 14, I felt a sense of empowerment that is hard to explain. I put up with the nonsense of flying now, but we still travel and will continue to do it.
One of my favorite Harry Potter quotes is when Dumbledore finds Terry longingly looking at his parents in the Mirror of Erised. Dumbledore tells Harry that it does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live. Nor does it do to dwell on grief and forget that we need to live.
Thank you again, Jim. I chose to watch PBS today – they were showing the series on the National Parks, by Ken Burns. I didn’t need to watch the 24/7 coverage of 9/11. I watched it already and I will always remember it. But we do need to move on. It is the only way to reclaim what we have lost – our freedom and our sense of what it means to be an American.
Oh, my – must be thinking about my husband, Terry. I typed in his name instead of Harry. And please ignore the other typos – it’s late. Sorry.
((Cassie))
Words can’t express how sorry I feel about the loss of your beloved child. That’s a hole in the heart that can’t be filled.
Thank you Jim. I agree with your post. The last couple of days I have had a feeling of a light-hearted sadness, you know…the nothing overwhelming kind, but the kind of sadness of something that you feel when your ready to move past and look forward. So your words have helped me knowing that others have felt something of the same.
Knowing that there was going to be alot of coverage for the 10th anniversary I chose to only watch a few of the programs that looked like they weren’t going to just be repeats of the past 9. Some days I get angry and just think that that our country has really gone to pot. I get tired of all fear, hate and wars that seems to consume alot of good people, but I guess thats what sells. I try to understand that only I can control my own actions, reactions and feelings especially when it is so much easier to blame others. (I’m not saying your post is blaming or anyones comments here- just in general.)
Cassie I did not lose anyone close or did anyone close to me during 911 and the decade since, but I have lost many near and dear to me from other life happenings and I have much sorrow for you and others that did. Cassie my heart truly does swell for you and all your loved ones may each year that passes get a little better.
((((Cassie)))) I weep with you. You do what you need to do. We will make a sacred space for you here. I don’t need to relive the horrors of that day to honor your pain and loss that is so deep and abiding. No parent should have to outlive a child anywhere on the face of this earth.
Goodnight, my Mudpuppies.
This is a rough night for us.
We remember not knowing yet—ten years ago– her fate. We went to sleep holding her in the palm of our hands and close to our hearts–not knowing yet.
Her college roommate was among those who sifted through the debris over the next 7 months. We never got a fragment to bury. Nothing.
So it goes—-Kurt Vonnegut.
We’ll be here tomorrow and the day after and the days after.
Rest.
we are here.
Amen and amen.
{{{{{Cassie}}}}}
Thank you for sharing your daughter, of blessed memory, with all of us here.
We are here for you, Cassie.
You are strong and brave and dearly loved.
L’Shalom,
thatcrowwoman
My thoughts are with you. May you find some semblance of peace, however small, in the knowledge that you are cared about and that your daughter gave a great deal of joy to others during her years on this earth.
Sending you (((((hugs))))).
(((Cassie Jeep)))
bring her with us all.
there are many here by your side.we can all walk together.
it won’t change your loss, but we can steady your arm, carry you if you need.
we are here.
Thank you. Her love endures…AND BOLSTERS US ALL.
In all the flap about what America suffered on 911 , the loss of each discrete and precious life has been lost in the melee.
America needs to move on, you do whatever you need to do. We are here with you.
Those of us who lost loved-ones cannot let go. Sorry, but we can’t.
Not ten years, not the lifetimes of children and not the lifetimes of grand children ..not the years they lost.
I’m sorry, but we can’t.
It’s there…forever.
P.S.
Our daughter was 27…I nursed her at my breasts. She was engaged to be married. Her fiance has moved on. We have not.
I still see her amber-brown eyes looking up at me—mischievously—as she nursed. She retained her playful sense of humor throughout her truncated life.
Parents should NEVER outlive their children.
When they do, the quesitons are not answered…ever.
My heart aches for you. Your burden is too great. Your loss is unbearable. I am so sad for you and for everyone else who loved your sweet daughter and miss her so much, today, and every day.
My heart aches, as well, and will ever ache. But it is a comfort to know that those of you who never knew her recognize that her passage diminishes us all.
No, they’re not (your first post.) My aunt was killed in the plane crash of the Viet Nam orphans in the 70s. Your memories are dazzlingly sweet, and it was a joy to read them. Hugs and kisses to you which I wish were on that day, but flood circumstances took my computer. She’s in my heart now, thank you.
i am so very sorry for your loss Cassie. the loss of a child can never be assuaged.
there are no words to offer solace and even the embrace of family and friends hurts.
never-the -less i send you love. i stand with you you darling.
Don’t let go neighbor, hold them close, and carry them forward with you.
Cassie, as a veteran of this conflict, and the last one, believe me when I say that I understand where you’re coming from. I lost people I knew in the Pentagon that day. And I’ve lost more than a few brothers in the decade than followed too, one as recently as four months ago. I went to war over it, and risked my own life and there are things that I remember every day.
It is easy to relive this horror over and over and it’s damned hard to move-on. Not forget, but to move on.
However, about once a week I pass a vehicle on the Glenn Highway here in Anchorage. On that back of that truck is a bumper sticker that says: Hanoi Jane, We will never forget!. Nearly fifty years now, and still the hate burns bright. Bright enough to post that message on the back of his 45K truck. Fifty years is a long, long time to hate somebody or something. I see it every day, down at the VA, on the web, and in the hate-mail I get (and don’t think I’m not getting plenty for this post). That kind of hate eats at you, it steals your life away.
As someone quite familiar with the aftereffects of war and conflict and death, I’m not saying to forget, I’m saying there comes a point where we have to move on. For yourself and for those that you lost.
Oh, I do hold her close. So very close.That’s why I can’t let go…ever.
Jim Wright/Stonekettle StationNo Gravatar
We can’t move on, yet. Her siblings continue to “gift” us with grandchildren. We love them all, but we feel an absence at the table.
There will ever be an absence at the table.
There is a big difference between not letting go, and playing the same footage over and over every year.
I don’t think it is appropriate to keep showing the planes crashing into the towers.
I don’t think it is respectful of the people who died that day to play recordings of their voices or the audio from the planes or the air traffic control towers.
There was a lot of footage of people jumping which should never have been played in the first place. I have not seen much of that repeated, thank the deities.
Ten years of footage played over and over, the same documentaries played over and over.. it is enough.
Every single one of us can replay that footage in our heads on our own.
We do not forget.
It is time for the tv stations to be respectful of the people who died that day and cease playing the footage.
I’m sorry for your loss, Cassie. 🙁
Thank you for expressing what I’ve been feeling but couldn’t put into words. The tragedy of that day WILL never, and SHOULD never be forgotten, but those images are burned into our hearts and we don’t need to see them again and again and again. I can’t help but believe that the last thing that the people who died that day would want is to be forever associated with those kind of videos or recordings…to be remembered for those few horrible moments instead of the lives they lived before September 11th.
While the pain of losing loved ones will never go away (my heart breaks for you, Cassie), I think now is the time, especially with the opening of the memorials in NY, Washington and Shanksville, that we move from reliving the horrors of 9/11 to honoring those who perished, and those who helped in whatever way they could.
Let’s replace the videos of people falling from the buildings with those of children tracing their parent’s name in the memorial. Let’s stop playing the recordings of last conversations and listen instead to the messages of the sons and daughters who are making the most of their lives in a conscious effort to make their missing father or mother proud. Let’s watch the families comfort each other and share their triumphs instead of reliving the awful events of that morning. Let’s focus on the beauty and peace that the memorials inspire and put away the images of that day’s devastation.
Let’s focus, not on how those 2,977 people died, but on how they LIVED, how their families and communities continue their legacies, and what we can all take away from the lessons of that day. Let’s use the memories of that day to remind ourselves that, when we join together, we can weather any storm, bowed but unbroken.
Did you see the documentary on CBS?
http://www.nypost.com/p/entertainment/tv/if_you_watch_one_show_make_it_this_0qMxGgG2QrVwWA7KCqQM6H
I hadn’t seen it when it first came out in 2002 and the updates included an extended interviews on the health issues facing first responders. For me, this was worth the two hours.
I think the only merit to the memorialization is the individual stories from that day. I think it was appropriate to have the dedication of the Memorial site today, but most of the media (ny metro papers) are round the bend with their coverage.
THIS is something worth seeing, a more positive story of 9/11 that few people were even aware of. Gave me goosebumps!
Here’s the link:
Tom Hanks Narrates ‘BOATLIFT,’ Honors Untold 9/11 Story Of Mariner Heroes (VIDEO)-12 min.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eddie-rosenstein/tom-hanks-narrates-boatlift_b_956529.html
An excellent short on Huffington Post narrated by Tom Hanks. It is the telling of how the mariners were able to shuttle over 500,000 people safely off of the island in less than 9 hours. They worked without any organization and on their own. There were tugboats, ferrys fishermen boats, pleasure crafts all working one trip at a time to take people off the island. It is the largest maritime evacuation in history.
WONDERFUL! Thanks so much for sharing such an uplifting story! I’ve sent it on to my husband, since I’ve kinda growled about all the inundation of sadness today via t.v. He’ll be receptive to the goodness thereof as I have been.
outstanding essay Jim Wright. thank you.
I highly recommend this read, as well.
field-negro.blogspot.com/2011/09/09-11-11.html
What an interesting man and writer. Thanks for pointing us in his direction. He’s now bookmarked.
Yes! He is one of my favorite bloggers!
Thank you so much for this article, especially for pointing out the voyeuristic nature of the endless audio and visual re-plays. Disgusting and inappropriate for true “mourning”.
Thanks to the author of this post who put into words some of what I have been feeling for awhile. I want to be respectful to the memories of the people who lost their lives in the tragedy of Sept. 11, 2001, but I do think that focusing on the tragedy over and over is not the right thing to do. We need to learn from it, but not dwell on it and not let its negativity dominate how we live our lives. We can choose how to integrate this into our lives, and I choose to let go of the negativity and pain and move forward with hope for a future filled with a more open and inclusive society here in the U.S.
We need to remember so that we will never forget that defending our country does matter against those who want to terrorize us within our borders or from other countries. There are too many citizens of this country that want to do harm to other citizens of this country because of the color of their skin, who they choose to love, who they choose to worship or which community they are apart of. We need to remember that voting matters and the next time you don’t want to be bothered getting to a voting booth because it will take too much time out of your schedule the outcome may not be the best for this country. Al Gore won the election by the popular vote, not the electorical vote over Mr Bush, what would have happened if he was in office instead … we need to remember those people that were there to help us in case of emergancies and put their job ahead of their misgivings and warnings to help everybody and anybody in those towers and the pentagon that day and today when the fire crews and police need our help with new contracts or equipment that we as the public support their efforts. We need to remember that our attention span of world events and how we face them should not be limited to 150 words or less in a text message, that we need to understand our global responsibilities to the oppressed and the poorest of the poor as well as the rich and take the time to understand how and why and where we affect those peoples of the world. We need to remember that we must be part of the solution, not just the bravo of “taking out the enemy”, or the maker of the bombs of destruction. We need a department of peace with an office right next to the department of war.
We need to remember so that we learn to move on – frankly I don’t think this nation has learned at least from the politicians view and since this country is so mangled in the political garbage I really wonder if we can move on. Democracy matters, voting matters to move on.
Thank you AKM for all you do.
I watched a little bit of the President’s speech at the Kennedy Center concert tonight and thought about how things would have been different if he had been President on September 11, 2001 instead of George Bush.
The actions of only a few men – some of them terrorists and the others members of the Bush administration (who some people may also consider terrorists) – on that single day have changed the course of the world’s history in ways that we may never fully recover from.
May everyone affected by the events of that day find some peace tonight and in all the days to come.
So thoughtful; thanks.
I went to the first birthday party for one of my tiniest clients today. What a great way to celebrate life moving on. There is nothing like a baby’s face covered in green whipped cream to make one smile and remember that life goes on. And to think there were times in the last year that his parents were worried they might not see this day…
I agree so completely. Thank you for expressing my own thoughts about this anniversary of 911. I avoided the myriad television programs this past week and especially today; I just don’t want to relive all that again, and again, and again.
We need to remember the dead, and honor the living, but by this time, we, as a nation, also just really need to move on, and allow ourselves to heal.
Just say no to 9/11 “pron” (the filter know what I meant). Get on with your life, take a walk, hug a mudpup.
You can make a difference in so many concrete and interesting ways.
Yes, it’s just about too much to relive again. Thanks for your thoughtful words and insight.
We do need to move on and upward. We,as citizens,need to remember and never forget how easy we were duped into giving up our civil and Constitutional rights. We must never forget that one political party in particular tried to turn our Democracy into a religious quasi-dictatorship and bled patriotism dry for so many of us. How they usurped patriotism to re-write the very laws we are governed by. We are divided by design. One party has designs on permanent rule again and they are the real threat to our Peace and Security. They are trying to do what heinous attacks on September 11,2001 failed to do. We are a Nation of differences in languages and cultures and ethnicities of backgrounds and customs and there are those who long for homogeneity in color and religion at the expense of America’s long and proud history. We must move past these last ten years of hate-mongering. We will overcome hate once more,let’s just never forget how and why we got here.
I am so glad to read that someone is putting words to my own thoughts. What good can possibly be served by replaying all the horror of ten years ago? Right after the attacks, I remember hearing so many people ask “Why do they hate us so much?” We’ve never paused for a real discussion of “why”. Instead, Bush told us all to go shopping. Our government invaded two countries that had never attacked ours and were no possible threat to us, and lied about the reasons. Bush hid the cost of war, making sure it never showed up in our national budget. The “threat” was so exagerrated that we willingly gave up our freedoms one by one, we countenanced torture and disappearance, and we kept war criminals in office. We acted like we were the only nation in history to face this kind of attack, while ignoring the fact that we have attacked and killed many more innocent people around the world. These wars are bleeding us to death, the criminal actions of our elected leaders are only going to assure we continue down this sordid path, and yet today we sanctify and enshrine the very actions that started the whole thing. It’s time to move on, pick up the pieces, and try to salvage whatever is left of our country.
High five!
High five to Mag the Mick…thank you….Will we ever see dick cheney and “former” president bush (lower caps for a reason) tried for their hand hand in this travesty?