I fear for this anniversary. Like everyone else, my memories of 9/11 are vivid. It is a shared experience for Americans, but as time goes on, it is losing its shared meaning. Some of this meaning will, I'm sure, continue to be shunted into political ends, even more so with the election coming up.
I have no interest in 9/11 "Troofers", the conspiracy theorists who have all kinds of outlandish ideas about the attacks. I don't need them---the real truth is more frightening.
9/11 wasn't Pearl Harbor. We didn't wake up on the 12th to find ourselves at war, despite what the president may have said. When we entered a real war in '41, we sacrificed. We gave up material goods, we stopped driving, we grew vegetables. I have a box full of ration coupons that my grandfather refused to use as he thought is would be even more patriotic to increase his sacrifice beyond what was asked. After the 11th, we weren't asked to sacrifice---quite the opposite---we were told the best way to fight was to keep our way of life unchanged, to show the terrorists we cannot be cowed out of our cars by a few thousand murders.
What we weren't told was that even though we would not be asked to sacrifice, we would anyway. By becoming entangled in unwise military engagements, diplomatic fuck ups, and petrocracy, we've played right into the hands of those who attacked us.
You see, with this so-called "asymmetry", Islamic extremists can do very little to harm us physically. One mass murder can't destroy our economy, our values, or our way of life.
Unless we let it.
And we did let it. What we sacrificed was our Constitution, our privacy rights, our economy, and our souls. We imprisoned people without due process, we tortured, we extraordinarily rendered, we wire-tapped. We didn't fight terrorism by showing the example of our constitutional democracy, we gave in to terrorism by diminishing it. We fucked up.
As the GOP runs a campaign on the need for strength, I hope both parties remember an important lesson from American history. Our peace hasn't only come through our strength; our strength has come through peace---a peace that has allowed us to prosper, build, innovate. The prosperity engendered by peace has allowed us to retool for war when necessary, and to fight these wars with little damage to our home soil.
Wars of choice don't show the world our willingness to win, they show the world our willingness to be duped into playing by someone else's rules. The rhetoric spouted by both candidates is ultimately meaningless. Either one will be faced with a world where American power and wealth has been diminished by reactionary decisions. Whomever takes the helm will have to find the strength to face the world based on our core values as a nation, and based on deliberate thought, and by action rather than re-action. We still have a chance to learn from 9/11. Let's use this anniversary to start doing it right.
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About 30 seconds of serious thought is enough to reveal that the USA's era as the 800# economic and military gorilla ("The American Century") is ending. It's quite inevitable based on simple economics, and the USA's military power has always been founded on our economic power.
So be it.
One consequent question is: will we bankrupt our grandchildren trying to maintain Empire past its natural span?
More to the point, as you note: who will we be when the time comes that we can no longer base our national identity on being The Last Remaining Superpower? Who will we be when we aren't the baddest military on Earth?
In my sunnier moments, I like to hope that my generation will have the wisdom to let go gracefully and leave my grandchildren a United States more like the one my grandparents grew up in, where the phrase "what our nation stands for" means something other than power.
I don't see this being discussed much, and if anything drives me to blogging it would be to host discussions on those themes.
Pardon me while I go take my meds.
Sometimes I wonder if that is why Troofers have their weird ideas. Perhaps they find them comforting.
Sometimes I wonder if that is why Troofers have their weird ideas. Perhaps they find them comforting.
Well, they are. Frankly, I find the idea that 9/11 was really perpetrated by the Illuminati, acting through the NSA on behalf of the teal greens a more appealing idea than the truth. If it's all a vast conspiracy then we can, in principle, expose the conspiracy, get the conspirators out of power or even put them in jail, and all will be well. If it's just normal people doing normal things* that led to it then we're screwed. Which we are. And probably deserve to be.
*Yes, I know that hijacking an airplane and running it into a building falls outside of the realm of "normal behavior". But the things that led to it: war, oppression, people following charismatic leaders with no morals, fundamentalism--all perfectly normal. Unfortunately.
I don't hold it against troofers. They're not part of the movement because they are amoral. There is nothing inherently evil about it, and while I can understand why some people take it personally, I have yet to hear a troofer blame or express hatred for the victims.
It's bad thinking, and something must be done certainly, but getting mad at them and calling them names isn't helpful. It only serves to drive them deeper into their shadow world and Cassandra complexes.
As a New Yorker who was here and working in a Manhattan hospital on 9/11/01 and who lives a block from the WTC site, I'd also like to say the following to both presidential candidates: Go away. You are only showing disrespect to those who died and those who survived by showing up at the site and trying to score political points. That goes double for any party whose slogan is "country first" or any similar appeals to nationalism. The people who died in the WTC weren't all US-Americas. Those who were weren't all native born US-Americans. They didn't all speak English, certainly didn't all speak English as a first language. They, like the city, were a diverse group of people from many places who spoke many languages and believed many things. So until you're willing to respect ALL New Yorkers, including those who can't vote for you, including those who speak Chinese, Korean, Russian, or Arabic, including those who pray facing Mecca five times a day, including those who never pray at all--just go away and stay away. You didn't respect the people who died in the attacks while they were alive so stop pretending to regret their deaths.
"One mass murder can't destroy our economy, our values, or our way of life. Unless we let it. And we did let it. What we sacrificed was our Constitution, our privacy rights, our economy, and our souls. We imprisoned people without due process, we tortured ... "
The jihadists don't give a *damn* about your precious "way of life". Keep it! The idea that they are after your churches and cars is a deception.
Their demand was simple and stated up-front in plain arabic: US troops out of the Holy Land, by which they meant Saudi Arabia (where Mecca is). That's all.
GWB won the war on terror not by winning it, but by capitulating pretty much straight away to this demand. The invasion and occupation of Iraq was - among other things - an excuse to draw down troops in Saudi Arabia. That's why there have been no more attacks. GWB *gave in*.
As to the troofers: one of the most charming and naive things about them is their faith in the US Military. "Oh no," thay say, "the military could not possibly have fucked up that badly, as to let 11 ragheads kill 3000 americans on american soil. It had to be an inside job!".
They're wrong, of course. The US military has no experience at all in defending the US homeland. They blew it, big time.
Great post PalMD!
Amen brother! (This message should not be construed as religious in any way).
Chemist: "I have yet to hear a troofer blame or express hatred for the victims."
Most people don't pay much attention to the twoofer dopes and don't realize some of the claims made by some of them:
The pilot of the plane that crashed into the Pentagon (Charles Burlingame) has been accused of complicity.
A young boy, son of a Pentagon worker, was killed in the crash at the Pentagon. His father has been accused of having advance knowledge because he took 9/11/2001 off to play golf and was not killed by the plane crashing.
Barbara Olson was on the plane that hit the Pentagon. She has been accused of complicity and it was even suggested that she had been arrested subsequently in Europe. Her husband, Ted, has been accused of complicity.
A DC taxi driver whose cab was damaged by a pole hit by the descending plane has been accused of participating in the cover up.
At one time or another just about every person who had a phone conversation while on one of the doomed airplanes has been accused of being part of the plot by one of these dopes or another.
Some conspiracy theorists suggest that all the passengers on all the planes were in on it.
If you have the stomach for it and do a little looking around at conspiracist sites you can find a whole bunch more really wacky accusations. Now, it is true that not all the wackoes support all these accusations all the time, but it seems to be pretty difficult to follow a conspiracy thread very far without running into some accusation or another. It appears to me to be a natural result of trying, however lamely, to apply reasoning skills when a really wacky premise (any of the conspiracy theories) confronts all the evidence.
For example, flight 77 hit the Pentagon and Barbara Olson spoke with her husband Ted, probably by seat-back phone, shortly before the crash. If the consparicist believes that flight 77 did not hit the Pentagon (and many, many so contend), what is to be made of this conversation between the Olsons?
It's not just the foot soldiers of the twoof revolution who engage in such speculation. A. K. Dewdney, a Canadian computer science professor who used to write for Scientific American and is the author of at least two books about identifying woo, includes suggestions of complicity among some of the 9/11 victims in his conspiracist speculation. Dewdney should read his own books.
Another non-religious 'amen'. As you point out, the costs have been so high. I hope we as a country can move in another direction come election day.
*sigh* The other day I saw a picture of Al Gore at the DNC, and it reminded me how things might have been.
Great post! After 9/11/01, I remember the world reaching out to us, various countries sending messages of condolence and compassion, offers of help. We didn't only blow it with respect to the terrorists; we blew it with respect to our relationships with other countries in the world.
If you look at what the marginal tax rates were during WWII, they were on the order of 90%.
http://www.truthandpolitics.org/top-rates.php
Bush's response to 9/11 exactly fit with his stated understanding of why the terrorists attacked the US. Bush said that they attacked us because they "hate our freedoms".
By removing the freedoms that we have, Bush is trying to remove the reasons that he thinks the terrorists hate us.
McCain/Palin is more of the same. Remove more freedoms and the terrorists will hate us less.
It's amazing how quickly people forget the terror of that day 7 years ago! The terrorists are not dead and gone. They will attack again, we just don't know when and where. Do you want to see the battle take place on American soil, or somewhere else, that's the real question. One candidate wants to take the fight to them. One wants to actually negotiate with lunatics, give Israeli land away to Palestinians who want all Israelis and Americans dead, and basically watch us all succumb to the terrorists' demands. I'm not even saying which candidate is which, because I think we all know it. You idiots are all proof that we have lost the war on drugs. Why don't you all quit smoking pot and actually pay attention to what's going on in the world?!? Meanwhile, check out this article for a more eloquent argument... http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122108887527021265.html?mod=todays_colu…
Are you serious?! You have got to be fucking kidding me! I just read Yes, We Have No Neutrons and I recommend it to everyone. Wow. Just- Wow. That is a real shock. After doing so well as a skeptic he goes off the deep end over 9/11?
It is taking place on American soil. It damn well should take place on American soil.
Someone who lived a long time ago and was far, far more familiar with tyranny than almost any of us said:
The questions are as important today as they ever were.
If, indeed, 3000 dead are enough to be worth sacrificing basic freedoms, then why are 280,000 dead not worth reducing our at-all-costs addiction to cheap oil? Is the new symbol of the United States the Hummer?
Add all the other questions you like to the list, but until we come face to face with those it's going to be really difficult to have any meaningful discussion of the rest.
The terrorists are not dead and gone.
Those particular terrorists are dead, gone, and vaporized. Want revenge? I think my plant just reduced some CO2 that used to be part of Mohammed Atta. He's being absorbed into the country he hated by the plant of a secular humanist he probably would have despised.
I have lived in NYC for nearly 10 years now. I saw, heard, and smelled the WTC disaster. I don't wish the same kind of destruction on anyone. Certainly not on the entirely innocent people of Iraq. But if a fight there must be, why shouldn't it be on American soil when the US is the country most involved? Would it be better somehow if only innocent bystanders in proxy countries died? Well, that's how we did it in the Cold War, I suppose.
Chemist:
Dewdney has been involved with the 9/11 conspiracist crack-pottery for quite a while. He speaks at conspiracy theory conferences, presenting his scientific (hardee har har har) study about flying a small plane around London, Ontario making cell phone calls. Check out which appears to be a Dewdney controlled site. Look particularly at his Operation Pearl article in which he puts forth ideas about what happened to the hijacked planes. Also note the articles attributed to R. Leland Lehrman and Karl Schwartz for some insight into a couple of Dewdney's fellow travelers along the 9/11 outer loop.
First of all, you people must be smoking more than pot if you think it's a good idea to bring the battle onto American soil. You want more attacks against civilians, like the WTC on 9/11?? You think it's okay for them to attack our civilians, but not for us to attack their civilians? You're either stupid, or you've just taken too many drugs.
Secondly, if you think our war against terrorists, and specifically al Qaeda, has anything to do with OIL, then you have really been drinking the liberal Kool Aid for too long. Do you think the people who died on 9/11 died for any reason having to do with oil? The only connection to oil is that's how the terrorists get their money (and the opium they're selling to dopes like you). The right wing's desire to kill them is pure and simple self-defense. We, like most rational people, believe that if we don't kill the terrorists first, they will kill us. The fact that they are suicidal and willing to take down buildings full of innocent civilians demonstrates their inability to talk and negotiate like rational people. The fact that Barak Obama feels he can negotiate with people like Ahmadinejad (who, by the way, thinks the Holocaust never happened and that Israel needs to be destroyed completely) demonstrates his inability to realize that he is no longer debating with fellow Harvard Law School students. Obama obviously has not encountered any real psychopaths in his experience as a community organizer, otherwise, he'd understand what a stupid idea that is.
A question which often comes to mind when I read blog comments, and which I think might be worthy of research:
Why are right wing authoritarian follower personalities compelled to parade their symptoms in public on the Internet? Is there an evolutionary basis for this behavior?
It's here -- read the Patriot Act. We conceded that battle.
Which is worse: 3000 dead, or losing the liberties that generations of us paid for in blood? (Note: that's a real question. I can't answer for you, only for me.)
At most indirectly. IMHO they died because someone hates the values that the United States claims to hold dear. Oil comes in as proof that we're willing to spend ten times as many lives every year on lifestyle than were lost on 9/11/01, and that lifesytle demands cheap oil. Thus, oil is worth vastly more than the lives lost at the WTC and since then.
As for those vaunted values, our leadership agrees with the attackers that they're not worth defending.
Chalk one up for the attackers.
Ktesibios, I think there is an evolutionary reason why right wing authoritarian types want to parade their pathology for all to see.
I used to work for a man who had a particular idea of the correct strategy for playing chicken. His idea of the optimum strategy was to rip out his steering wheel and throw it out the window. By doing this he ensured that he could not deviate (because he no longer had control of his vehicle), and had advertised that fact to his opponent (by throwing the steering wheel out the window).
He has in effect told his opponent, I am bat-shit insane, and will continue on this path even if it leads to my death, if you dont want to die with me, you will conceed to me and let me win.
That is what the two groups of right wing authoritarian types are saying on both sides. The religious extremists on the one hand willing to have their followers die for their beliefs and the religious extremists on the other hand willing to have US soldiers die and kill unlimited numbers of Iraqi civilians. No matter what the cost in human or financial terms, neither side will back down. They are playing chicken and neither will deviate.
But just as it isnt the right wing authoritarian leaders who go to the front lines in Iraq and risk death, it isnt the religious leaders who are the suicide bombers. As long as the right wing authoritian leaders are provided with the means to carry out their attacks, the suicidal fighters and the US volunteers and the tens of billions per month, they will continue to fight.
The fact that Barak [sic] Obama feels he can negotiate with people like Ahmadinejad
Quick question - which American administration has never, ever had even the slightest diplomatic contact with people who are ideologically repugnant in the hope of preventing conflict? It's a trick question, of course. The answer is "none of them". It's a fact of political life that you will, eventually, have to get that long spoon out to sup with the devil. You can't be at war with the entire non-democratic world, as much as you may want to be.
Next question - why do right-wing trolls accuse everyone else of "drinking the kool-aid" when they swallow and belch out nonsense propaganda like this?
Disagreement does not equal troll (although I still think s/he is wrong).
Now, conspiracy theorists, they make good trolls....
How would you bring the battle onto American soil? The insurgents in Iraq see us as targets of opportunity and foreign invaders. We brought the battle to their soil. Meanwhile, it's true, Al-Qaeda is perfectly happy to kill us so long as we're close to them, they are going to try when we are far from them, too. Us fighting them is not a deterrent, they don't care.
"Their civilians" need to be attacked? Who pray tell, are "their" civilians? I'm not any drugs, but you should think about something for that violent streak. Basically, a bunch of brown people bombed a building full of white, black, and other brown people, so we're going to kill all the brown people. Smart. There's a bridge I want to sell you.
It has everything to do with oil, do you think that Usama Bin Laden gives a damn about a country half the world away that minds its own business? We were attacked because we consistently interfere in the Middle East due to our dependence on their oil. We had troops in the ME long before 9/11 to secure our supplies of oil. Osama bin Laden doesn't want infidels in the Arab world, bringing us into direct conflict with him. Meanwhile, we support the Saudi government which spreads Bin Laden's own virulent form of Islam to other people who live under dictatorial regimes propped up by us.
Most rational people understand that people aren't born terrorists. I prefer to nip the transformation in the bud by approaching it with a combination of diplomatic, humanitarian, and social endeavors. This includes a refusal to support some dictatorial regimes and not others.
Is the fact that we nuked two cities full of civilians belonging to a non-nuclear country demonstrative of our inability to talk and negotiate like rational people? No, it's about our ability to use tactics that work. Terrorism works. So long as we continue to let it work, they will continue to use it. It's a tactic, not a moral coda.
Well here's a huge hunk o' bullshit. Who cares if Ahmadinjead believes in the holocaust or not. We already know Iran and Israel don't get along, and the fact is no Arab country will ever get along with Israel until the peace process starts to show real wisdom over political exigency. Meanwhile, it is our responsibility to use every tool we have to make sure Iran does not pursue nuclear weapons. Diplomacy is a tool. You don't use a hammer to install a window. Threatening people with force accelerates arms races, it doesn't slow them down.
As for the "community organizer" thing. Shut up. The founding fathers emphasized civil service and activism. They were the first American community organizers. I suppose for you, being an American mean waving a flag, speaking English, and being white. That's not how it works. Sorry.
Please. Read a book that hasn't been published by a conservative wingnut. I recommend you get a copy of the constitution first, I have mine.
I would love for that to be the case, but I'm afraid you haven't been listening. Among other demands coming from that quarter are things like, "stop making movies offensive to Islamic values," "stop corrupting out youth with your television," and the classic "stop publishing material (including political cartoons) that radical Muslims find offensive."
In the meantime, some of these fine people find it desirable to blow up each others' mosques, so I present to you that attempting to moderate their behavior by acceding to some of their wishes just might not be effective. You will also note that I haven't made any allusions to events of seventy years ago, although if you like we could.
Do not construe this as support for idiocy, venality, cowardice, pandering, or any of the other flavors of bad or immoral decision-making that the United States has been guilty of over the past century or so. On the other hand, don't blame the victim for not emulating a Schmoo at dinner time.
[quote]Is the fact that we nuked two cities full of civilians belonging to a non-nuclear country demonstrative of our inability to talk and negotiate like rational people? No, it's about our ability to use tactics that work. Terrorism works. So long as we continue to let it work, they will continue to use it. It's a tactic, not a moral coda.[/quote]
Big difference... The American soldiers who actually dropped the bombs on those cities did NOT KILL THEMSELVES. Suicidality, by definition, is irrational. Any physician knows that, but I guess "chemists" don't. Any patient who comes into an emergency room and is threatening suicide gets admitted to the psych ward... PERIOD! No questions asked.
Secondly, the purpose of the atom bombs was to END a war that had been going on too long, and had been started by the Japanese bombing US! THEY were the aggressors. In contrast, the 9/11 attacks were an attempt by terrorists to START a war, by killing themselves and taking a lot of us with them.
If you can't see the difference here, then the Kool-Aid must be more toxic than I imagined. My condolences.
At what point did the idea of negotiation become "Give them everything they want and maybe they'll go away"? That's not what Obama, or anyone who wants to negotiate, is talking about. (And you all know it, too, if you were honest.) What we *do* want to see is honest discussion like we had with North Korea. Remember? They gave up their nuclear program in exchange for technical/agricultural/energy support?
When people's lives are "Nasty, brutish and short", they have no motivation to stop killing other people to take what they need/want. How do you make an enemy into a friend? (See Marshall Plan, contrast with Treaty of Versailles).
DWMD,
Jesus H. Fuckin' Christ,
"Suicidality" which is not even a word, makes no difference. The Japanese deployed suicide bombers regularly during world war II, so did the Germans. The concept of martydom exists in many cultures, ours not excepted. This is not the same as suicidal pathologies, and I'm fairly sure I can get an amen from any psychologist or anthropologist on the matter.
As for an "attempt to start a war" as far as these people are concerned the war has been ongoing, or do you have amnesia? The USS Cole, Khobar Towers, the FIRST WTC bombing? The United State's support for the formation of Israel did a lot to fuck over this country's long term legacy and reputation in the Middle East.
As for me being a chemist, you have a point?
@DC Sessions,
Don't lump. There is more than one terrorist group with differing agendas. The single biggest mistake I see commonly made is to assume that all Islamist groups are similarly oriented. Al-Qaeda had issues with Zarqawi associating himself with them because of the targets he frequently chose. Any terrorist expert, or person who has been paying attention to Bin Laden's actual words, will tell you: Al-Qaeda is a cellular organization with little central direction (9/11 is an exception, not a rule.) Al-Qaeda is content to let anyone call themselves Al-Qaeda so long as they move along with their general goals. This is why they are so hard to destroy.
"That quarter" is not a monolith, and the assumption it is has crippled US policy from the start.
You are right though. I have excluded a lot from the equation, I didn't want DWMD's head to explode. Also, I'll write a book on the Middle East later.
Suicidality is a real word, believe it or not.
As for US support of Israel fucking things up, well, allowing others to change our policy through terror is probably a bad idea, right up there with bombing civilians who disagree with us.
Great Blog!
Wow, Chemist, you've really enlightened me. I'm sorry I ever doubted your intelligence or your ability to reason. Thank you for the education on so many fronts. I never before realized that a 22 year old chemistry student could teach me so much. I hope I can one day be as insightful as you and have such a profound understanding of the world. Thank you so much! Oh, and thanks for the refreshing beverage, too. I just LOVE drinking this delicious Kool-Aid!
Anonymity is so very much the bane of the internet, don't you agree?
You are quite welcome DWMD. Enjoy.
However now that you have come over to the dark side, it's spelled "delishowus", as per lolspeak guidelines. Tin foil hats are in the corner. Oh wait, I see you already have yours.
@PalMD,
Hm, I would have thought it would be "suicidalism". The closest I could find was "suicidology". That's what happens when you don't use a medical dictionary.
US policy on Israel has been consistently irrational. Terrorists or not, it needs to do an about face. However it is worth pointing out that radicalism does not spring from the air, and addressing it's root causes is not quite the same as capitulating to demands.
For example, capitulation would be saying Israel should burn to a fiery crisp. Addressing root causes would be speedy acknowledgment of human rights issues, a permanent UN observer force, and a real stop to the expansion of settlements.